Finlay McSporran
Published: 21:49, 9th July2025

Redbull announced this morning that their team principal Christian Horner has been sacked with immediate effect, having been in charge of the Milton Keynes outfit since their entry into F1 in 2005.

In those 20 years, Horner has lead the team to 124 race wins, 8 drivers titles and six constructors titles.

He oversaw two periods of Redbull domination in Formula 1, first from 2010-2013 when Sebastian Vettel won four back-to-back drivers championships. And more recently from 2021-2024 when Max Verstappen done the same, which included a mega run in which the team won 21/22 races in 2023, the closest any team has come to a 100% win rate.

Horner leaves F1 as the second most successful team principal in terms of wins, beaten only by McLaren’s Ron Dennis.

His 20 year stint at the team is the fifth longest in F1 history, and he has a had a huge impact on almost every area of the team, which leaves a big gap to fill.

Replacing him is Laurent Mekies (pictured right), who was previously team principal of Racing Bull’s, Redbull’s junior team. Mekies was also the number 2 man at Ferrari from 2021-2023.

His knowledge and experience of running an F1 team and the inner workings of Redbull, thanks to his role at the junior team makes him a great replacement, and his ability to get work done whilst keeping a low profile in the paddock (unlike Horner) could be exactly what Redbull needs right now.

With Mekies now at Redbull, the sister team has promoted sporting director Alan Permane (pictured left) to the role of team principal.

Why Now?

There’s been a lot of controversies surrounding Horner in recent years, however it seemed like their was always enough faith in him from those above to keep him, until now of course.

The most prominent controversy that Horner found himself in was when a female member of staff accused him of sexual harassment. This accusation came during last years season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Redbull launched and investigation into these claims, and Horner was eventually acquitted of any wrongdoing. This didn’t do much to help his public image however, as he was already under fire for the problems that Redbull were facing both on and off track.

One of these problems has been Redbull’s seemingly never ending second driver saga. Last year Horner signed a contract extension with the struggling Sergio Perez, hoping it would improve his form. It didn’t, and by the end of the season Redbull paid him off, replacing him with Liam Lawson, who himself was replaced by Yuki Tsunoda just two races later.

As well as this, the team has also seen an exodus in key personnel, such as legendary designer Adrian Newey who’s now at Aston Martin, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley who’s now at Kick Sauber, and engineer Rob Marshall who’s now at McLaren.

Speaking of McLaren, they are now F1’s dominant force with Redbull a distant fourth in the constructors standings, the teams competitive form having sharply declined since their dominant spell in 2023.

But perhaps most importantly, Redbull’s might be about to lose its biggest asset right now.

The Verstappen Factor

Throughout out of this, Max Verstappen has kept his head down and continued to win races and drivers championships, in a car that, sometimes, really shouldn’t be.

It seems that he is the only thing holding Redbull together right now. With their previously mentioned second driver problems, Redbull would be rock bottom of the standing right now without Verstappen, who has contributed 165 out of Redbull’s 172 points so far this season.

But it seems like even he might have had enough now, as there has been lots of talk recently about him leaving the team, a lot of which has been fuelled by comments his father (Jos) has been making.

It’s been known for a while that Jos hasn’t exactly been a big supporter of Horner. After the allegations made against him last year, Jos said that Redbull would “fall apart” under Horner’s leadership.

It’s speculated that the reason Redbull decided to sack Horner now, was to please the Verstappens, and hopefully keep Max at the team.

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Formula 1