Christian Horner sacked: Why now & what next?

0:04This is a Global Player Original Podcast. So, you know, I've run this team for 21 years. We've won more races and had more success in the 21st century than any other team. So, of course, everything goes in cycles, but I'm not planning to change how I operate. Well, that was only last weekend at Silverstone. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner insisted to LBC he was staying put. Yesterday, the bombshell announcement that after 20 years, eight drivers and six Constructors' Championship titles, oh, and two internal investigations over alleged sexual harassment of a female employee, he's out.

0:41But why now? Last week, we discussed rumours that their four-time world champion driver, Max Verstappen, was talking to another team. They've only won two races all season, their star car designer has gone, and Max's dad was famously not Horner's biggest fan. Today, we'll explain how things all started to unravel for Horner and what happens next. Could he really move to Ferrari to manage Lewis Hamilton? Netflix must be rubbing their hands together. Welcome to The Sports Agents.

1:15The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Hello, it's just me again today. And if you've been enjoying The Sports Agents, please make sure you hit follow and subscribe wherever you listen. In a moment, we're going to be joined by Drive to Survive star Will Buxton and the BBC's Jenny Gow to help us unpick this latest chapter of the Formula One soap opera. Of course, last night it was all about the Lionesses and Wales, with Jess Fishlock getting their first ever goal at a major championship. but it was the Lionesses' emphatic victory over the Netherlands and Lauren James' incredible mercurial individual talent, which kept us all glued to a match that had a must-win written all over it beforehand.

2:00In fact, the whole kind of narrative around it on the TV with my colleague Alex Scott was about the nerves going on there, that the unthinkable might happen, that England could actually be leaving the tournament before the end of the group stage. Well, that didn't happen, of course. What were we all worried about? And it was a brilliant performance from England. Comprehensive, looked like they had leaders all over the pitch and everybody doing the job that they were put on the pitch to do by Serena Wiegmann. In Serena, we continue to trust. A ruthless response to their opening day defeat by inflicting the heaviest tournament defeat on the Dutch.

2:35Serena Wiedman delighted. A perfect team performance and a very important scoreline. And staying with football, yesterday it was announced that Lyon have won their appeal against relegation from Ligue 1. And it leaves Palace fans now sweating over the Europa League place. If you don't know why, you can go back and check out our episode, which explains the entire mess much better than I could do right now. And you can take a listen to one of our guests from that episode on the feeling amongst Palace fans right now. With Crystal Palace, it has always felt, even more so in recent years, as though you are butting your head up against the glass ceiling.

3:10Because the idea of winning a domestic cup was just something I never even contemplated. We got to the final in 16 against United and we lost that. Every year it gets harder. to then have that taken away from you would just reinforce that feeling for everybody from the boardroom to the players to the coaches to the fans that isn't for us and you're still looking at a situation where potentially as I mentioned John Texter is not in control of Crystal Palace or Lyon by the time the competition starts and we're not allowed to play because of it. Ahead of the Lionesses yesterday on a channel called Rugby Pass I was watching Scotland's final group match against South Africa in the World Cup under 20s which has been played in Italy over the last couple of weeks.

3:50And it was an emphatic defeat for Scotland. I won't kind of dress this up, but can I just tell you that the talent coming out of South Africa is absolutely frightening. If you consider they've won the last two World Cups, the talent on show yesterday would say that they don't need to worry for at least the next four iterations of that competition. It was phenomenal. You can catch up with all episodes of the Sports Agents on Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Next up, how did Christian Horner lose his grip on the dynasty he built at Red Bull. We're going to chat to Drive to Survive's Will Buxton and BBC's Formula One presenter Jenny Gao.

4:24The Sports Agents.

4:28The Sports Agents. With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. So the big motor racing story of the week, the big story in sport this week, really, because it's one that's been kind of rumbling for a while, is the departure of Christian Horner from Red Bull. So we're going to speak to Will Buxton and Jenny Gow. Jenny's coming in in just a moment. Two very busy people traveling all over the world, as you do all the time, Will. So we do speak to you in an airport. Where else? Where else? Where were you when you heard the news and what was your reaction? I've literally just woken up. I'm in Florida at the moment with work, actually, with my family.

5:06And I woke up to just an absolute blast of text messages and have you seen the news? And as you said, quite rightly, it's been rumbling for some time. And yet it's still a shock because of the time of the season in which this has taken place. Because there were no real rumblings and no real chatter about it over the British Grand Prix weekend. And these things normally don't come without, you know, a little bit of chatter beforehand. It really has been a shock, a huge shock. Because Christian wasn't just a team boss at Red Bull. He was Red Bull. he's pretty much the only team boss that team has ever known for 20 years responsible for every one of their victories every one of their podiums every one of their championships and that's that's 14 championships in 20 years it's a victory in around a quarter of every race they've ever contested the level that he has taken that team to what he has done at that team and how much of a part of that team he obviously became as a result of that meant that he was almost seen as untouchable.

6:10So it is a shock. And within those eight driver's championships, two huge stars of the sport in Vettel and Verstappen winning four in a row each, you know, just creating these global icons of the sport, Red Bull and Horner behind all of that. And so as you say, the kind of shock was that actually he survived what looked like something that was going to be the end of him, the accusations of sexual harassment and coercive and controlling behaviour by a female employee and redacted messages were revealed. That was all 17 months ago. Twice cleared of those claims. And that looked like the thing that might cause the schism, the end for him.

6:49But it didn't. No. And that just really seemed to cement how untouchable his position was. He had the support of the Thai family, the owning family of Red Bull. But I mean, really, you have to go back three years, I think, to the death of Dietrich Mateschitz, who was, you know, the big boss of Red Bull, who turned it from a small drinks operation into this global marketing behemoth that it is. And when he wanted to run a Formula One team, he chose Christian. And back in the day, you know, it was a very simple operation. Dietrich ran the team and funded the team through pure passion and had absolute faith and trust in Christian.

7:32And whatever Christian said and whatever Christian wanted to do, Dietrich put up the money for it. It couldn't have been easier. And so when Dietrich died, there was a very immediate power vacuum where the simplicity of the decision-making process suddenly became ruled by committee and Christian having to answer to many different committees and ultimately Oliver Mintzlav, who used to run one of the Red Bull football teams over in Austria. And that sort of decision-making process became, I think a little bit harder for him. Then you had that season of absolute domination in 2023, something that had never been seen before in Formula One.

8:10And again, at the peak of their powers, untouchable, unruffled. Then along comes, as you said, the accusations and everything that went along with that. But the fact that he weathered that storm seemed to suggest that he was untouchable. And then Joss Verstappen, Max Verstappen's dad, made it quite clear that he didn't like Christian Horner. And it felt like publicly, at least, he was kind of distancing himself from Horner at this time. And it looked like he was kind of hoping this would be the thing that would drive Horner out. Anything we should look at there in terms of the timing of this now, with the noise kind of increasing about Verstappen's potential departure?

8:52Yeah, I don't think those two things can be separated. You know, when all the controversy erupted 18 months ago, you know, Max always said, look, so long as the car remains competitive, so long as the people at this team remain in place, then I want to stay here. But over the last 18 months, the people that Max relied upon for his competitive cars have all left. Adrian Newey, the greatest designer, hands down, in Formula One history, left. primarily because of the fallout from the situation with Christian and went to Aston Martin. Rob Marshall has gone. One of the key members of the technical team, Jonathan Wheatley, who was sporting director and sort of Christian's absolute number one deputy, he went to Sauber, which will become Audi, took them to a podium at Silverstone last weekend, quite incredibly for a small team.

9:42They've lost their chief strategist in Will Courtney. They've lost so many members of staff. And now they're at a point at which they're not fighting for the championship this year. And all of that success from 2023 now feels like, you know, a million years ago. As you said, there have been big rumors about Max leaving. Those rumors have been circulating now for a year or more. They swirl around Mercedes, which for me has never made much sense because they have their succession plan. They have their future locked in with Kimi Antonelli. George Russell is a darling of the team as well. and I'm not sure which of those drivers you would get rid of.

10:21The thing about the car, and you know I'm a complete F1 novice in spite of your book, the thing about the car being so geared and suited towards Max Verstappen that it makes it very difficult for other drivers even to drive, that would leave them in a bit of a hole as well, wouldn't it? Because you're not just going to get somebody else jumping in and having success in this car. And equally, Verstappen then going to Mercedes, what kind of modifications would they need to make to the car? Would they need to engineer a car around Max? There's two arguments on this. One is that they've designed a car so completely specific to Max that nobody else can drive it.

10:58And the fact that the second drivers, I should say, at Red Bull this year have amassed only single digits suggests certainly that Max is the only one who can drive that. Is that by design or is that simply the fact that Red Bull have designed a car that only a generational talent can extract something from and everybody else is floundering. I mean, that's the great unanswered question of all of this because these drivers aren't idiots. But Max is truly exceptional. Aston Martin, for me, has always seemed a more likely destination for him because they have Honda engines from next year. And critically, they have Adrian Newey, who's always designed cars that Max absolutely adores.

11:34And so there's this real tipping point now of all of these rumors swirling. What's the final straw? how has Christian suddenly lost the support of the Thai owners? How has he suddenly got himself into a position where, and let's be honest, look, they're not last. They're not coming last in every Grand Prix. And Red Bull for those 20 years, they haven't always been successful. They've had periods where Mercedes have dominated after. Which happens in sport, doesn't it? It's a natural kind of evolution. But Christian was always the talisman. He took them through the highs. He pulled them out of the lows and back to success again.

12:07So what's different this time? Why mid-season? And obviously the replacement has already been named as well. So there's no kind of guessing around that. Laurent Meckis? Laurent Meckis, yeah. Meckis, yeah. He was team principal for Red Bull's second team, Racing Bulls. Previously director at Ferrari as well. What kind of character, you know, what can he do in the middle of a season? It's going to be tough for him. You know, obviously coming in mid-season, there's an awful lot of work to be done. You know, there's maybe the feeling that the succession plan in terms of those that Christian chose to replace the departing key members of staff haven't been quite as effective as the team would have hoped for.

12:50Change in Formula One is never quick. You know, it's turning around a cruise ship. It takes a little tugboat a long time to pull that thing round into the direction that you want. So is it quite a wise move then to do this now rather than wait to the end of the season? I don't know. I think change is always better in the offseason. But if you know that you want to make a change, then you have to make the change as soon as you know you need to make it. And the critical thing here is, and you've brought it up, is Max. Has Christian been let go because Red Bull have learned that Max has signed elsewhere and this is the final straw?

13:25Or indeed, is this the final power play of the Verstappen family? Yoss and Max saying, there's all this talk about us going to Mercedes we're quite serious about, it. But if you want us to stay, you have to get rid of Christian. Because it feels very much like it's one or the other. And Mechies is a very different character to Horner, by all accounts, not quite the self promoter. Would that suit the dynamic? I don't know if there are any or many quite as self promoting as Christian. You know, he's, you talk about the, you know, the likes of your Vettels and your Verstappens and the huge names that Christian brought into that team.

14:07But Christian himself became a huge name, you know, a pantomime villain at times, getting booed at the F-175 event at the start of the year, which is something that he loved and he embraced. But he caught it as many controversial column inches as, you know, as his drivers at times. He is as much a celebrity and as much a part of the, you know, soap opera of Formula One as any of the drivers. Speaking of soap opera, I can imagine the exec producers at Drive to Survive yesterday absolutely rubbing their hands. Oh, God. The gift that keeps on giving. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I can't imagine this is the last that we will see or hear of Christian Horner.

14:49He already said in the post yesterday he has big plans for 2026. And with all of his experience and all of his contacts in the sport, you know, there have been rumours already this year that he was being courted by Alpine, rumours linking him to Ferrari. I think that one's more of a stretch than the Alpine one. He's very close with Flavio Briatore. So, you know, that one would seem to be more logical for me. But, you know, I don't think this is the last that we'll see or hear from Christian. Well, let's bring in Jenny, your colleague, Jenny Gao. And maybe she can add her opinion on that, where perhaps we might see Christian Horner next.

15:24Hi, Jenny. He's not going to disappear, is he, into the ether? No, absolutely no chance. Christian Horner, as Will was saying, liked his own script. He always has done and he is the leading character in his own play. So he won't be going anywhere so quickly, I think. Maybe he'll take some time just to lick his wounds and think about what he wants. Yesterday, I compared it to Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger, having a long stretch in charge of a team and then find themselves on the sidelines. And you have to, after such a long time associated to one team, you have to go through that transition.

16:07And I think it's going to be very hard for Lola Mekas to come into Red Bull in a very different role and lead that team when it's been someone else's job for 20 years. They haven't had anyone else there to really lead that ship. So I think it's fascinating. The timing of it is fascinating. And what's actually gone on, I don't think we will ever truly know. But F1 just keeps on delivering drama after drama. Well, yeah, the power play that perhaps is going on here is one thing. But also, there is kind of in the distance and not too far away, potential legal recourse for the complainant. Horner was cleared twice of these claims, but the complainant still has some kind of legal recourse.

16:52Would that, do you think, Jenny, be something that is worrying Red Bull? Well, Red Bull have obviously run these investigations. They were internal rather than external. So he was cleared twice by these internal investigations. As we know, the legal process is very long. It's arduous. But the complainant does still have an interest in this and would like to see justice done on her side. so we can't go into too much detail but will this continue I definitely think so because she hasn't been heard and she I think needs to be heard so I don't know how much of this has an effect in the whole scheme of things I mean looking through Instagram and reading comments obviously people have those question marks but we we can't answer them and there are certain things and we can't say about it either.

17:50No, because it is now potentially a matter for the courts to look at. But interesting that it looks like from the outside, well, that wasn't enough to get rid of him. Poor performance is enough to get rid of him. And I guess if it did go kind of wider legally, it wouldn't look great on Red Bull. I see exactly where you're coming from, Gabby, but this isn't something that's suddenly cropped up within the last month. This has been sitting in the background for the last 18 months. As Jenny says, it's not something we can go into explaining too deeply, regardless of how much we know of the situation.

18:26But this isn't new. And it's the same question that I asked right at the top. What has changed? Why now? Because this has been rumbling for 18 months. They knew this was going to be heard in civil litigation. That hasn't changed. And there's been no outcome from that. So that's not new. Why now? What percentage would both of you put on Verstappen then? If that was the thing, you know, if it's about Verstappen staying or going, what percentage would you put on Verstappen staying, Will, at Red Bull? I'd say that's 85 to 90%. To stay? Yeah. Yeah. Jenny? And now Christian's gone, it's probably up to 100%.

19:02Jenny, any difference of opinion? I come at it from a slightly different angle, which is with this before the horse bolted or after, did they fire Christian Horner because he's already lost Max Verstappen or did they fire him to keep Max Verstappen? And I was at an event yesterday with a lot of F1 fans and people who know a lot about F1. And we were split down the middle of what had happened. And the timing of this, I think, is key. What was said at the weekend over Silverstone was key. Max Verstappen didn't close down the questions when it came to him staying with Red Bull. I think I'm about 60 % that Verstappen has already signed with Mercedes.

19:4840 % that he will say at Red Bull. Got feeling. I think that there's a big key here as well, Gabby, is that the understanding in Max's contract is that his release clause is activated after the Belgian Grand Prix. So the fact this decision has been made before the Belgian Grand Prix is really interesting. But that's what I was about to ask, actually. When he has to make a decision, or when he can, like a footballer, in the turn of the year, when they're running out of contract, when they can actually start talking to other clubs, I know, actually, they've already been talking to other clubs, effectively, haven't they?

20:22Because Toto Wolff has said that Mercedes are talking to Verstappen. Serves Wolff's interest, doesn't it? Even if he's not intending on actually signing him, just to stir a little bit there as well. How delicious would it have been if Mercedes had announced that George had re-signed yesterday immediately after the announcement that Christian had gone? I mean, that could be today's bombshell, couldn't it? It would have been absolutely delicious. I see, I like that too simple for F1. goes on and every time you think something's sure to happen it goes the other way i mean there's so much money involved it's quite clear to me that max the sapon actually doesn't hold all the cards in this one toto wolf holds more cards than max does okay max might be the most talented person in f1 at the moment when it comes to drivers the most successful person um but actually Toto Wolff and the board at Daimler can choose whether to bring him on board, whether to pay that money up front and say, okay, we think we've got the best package for next year when the engine regulations and the normal regulations change so massively.

21:31They're in pole position, I think, again, for next year. So Max just wants to win. So as much as he doesn't like the politics of what's happened at Red Bull and is uncomfortable with that situation. At the end of the day, he just wants to win. And Cota Walsh potentially has that winning car and all the money. So I still think that Mercedes and the board are in the controlling position in this. And Lewis Hamilton would love to win again, which I was just chatting before you joined the podcast there, Jenny to Will, about jobs that Christian Horner could be potentially linked with. Could you see him working with Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari?

22:12I mean, honestly, no, I can't. I know that Ferrari and the word on the street was that Ferrari are being linked to maybe getting Christian Horner to come on board. I think, like Will said, that's more of a stretch to believe that that would happen. It just doesn't seem the perfect fit for Christian Horner. And whereas Alpine, Flavio Biettori, the link there, even looking at Instagram, Flavio has gone online and posted about Christian in a very respectful way. So do I see Christian and family moving across to Italy? Not really. No. Maybe that surprised me. And do I see Lewis Hamilton wanting to work with Christian Horner?

23:01Not really. One of the key reasons that Lewis moved to Ferrari, it wasn't just the allure of racing for the, you know, the Scuderia. It was to link up once again with Fred Vasseur, who ran Lewis to his junior series championships. Lewis adores that man and has absolute faith in Fred Vasseur. If they replaced Fred with Christian Horner, I don't think Lewis would be a Ferrari driver for much longer. Oh, the machinations, the twists and turns. It really is the drama that just keeps on giving us the most brilliant plot twist. So thank you so much, guys, for coming on and trying to kind of put into context there what's happened with Christian Horner.

23:42And just a final one on his legacy, I guess, because you said at the very beginning, Will, how incredibly successful he's been. I read a brilliant piece today. I've read quite a few pieces you can imagine on this today. You can find lots online in various newspapers about how with success, some people become more approachable and charming because it's almost like something is sated inside them and they become nicer. Christian Horner, this piece argued, went the other way. It's the classic Icarus story, isn't it? Flew too close to the sun, got burnt. Christian came in at a time where politics in Formula One was very different.

24:20and he learned his Machiavellian ways from the likes of Flavia Briatore and Bernie Eccleston. And perhaps those ways just don't fly anymore. You can't take away the success that he created. But I think certain methodologies and certainly the way in which he held himself over the last few years maybe didn't do him too many favors. Live by the sword, die by the sword, I guess. Interesting. Yeah, I agree. I mean, this is a man whose contribution to the success of F1, modern day F1, can't be undermined. Does that mean everyone bought into him and liked him? And the way that he ran a team? I don't think so.

25:02And certainly the controversy that he courted and enjoyed, I think, wasn't everyone's cup of tea. It certainly wasn't my cup of tea. But working in an F1 paddock, you have to be aware that people come back. And there's a good chance that I will be stood in front of him in a year's time with a microphone and having to talk to him as he was running a team. And also understand what makes them tick and that they are an integral part of F1 and you have to play the game. The Sports Agents.

25:42the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman get in touch with us via email at the sports agents at global.com or on socials and you can catch up with all our episodes on global player or wherever you get your podcasts remember to hit subscribe or follow and leave a review check out our weekend edition on friday which this week will feature a special interview with james haskell and a look back at our chats this week with the likes of the Secretary of State for Sport, Lisa Nandy. Thanks for listening.