Christian Horner return option ruled out as Brundle spots key F1 shift

Martin Brundle has hypothesised that former Red Bull boss Christian Horner would not want to return to F1 as a team principal because the role has become more technically focused rather than focusing on management.

Horner has been out of the F1 paddock since his surprise sacking by Red Bull in July, but he is widely believed to be targeting a return.

Martin Brundle questions Christian Horner F1 return goals

While big personalities were the norm back when Horner was appointed in 2005, Formula 1 has evolved to a point that technical minds are often being favoured for the team principal role.

At Haas, trackside engineering director Ayao Komatsu replaced Guenther Steiner while Horner himself was succeeded by Laurent Mekies, a man who spent many years in a sporting director role at Ferrari.

With that preference being shown, Brundle has suggested that Horner would not want to return to a team principal role if he did make a comeback to the paddock when discussing his replacement Mekies.

“Very impressed and he’s handling it in a very mature way,” Brundle said of the current Red Bull boss. “Ego, absolutely non-existent.

“We’re seeing a new type of team principal these days, aren’t we? That’s why Christian wouldn’t want to come back as a team principal.

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“I think with more of an engineering background, seems to be the way to tie together these vast quantities of highly specialised people in a team and he’s got help with the politics, with Helmut Marko and others.

“So I think it’ll be a collaboration on the [2026] driver choice, probably more so than in the past amongst the senior people in Red Bull, but I think he actually is the right man for the right time in Formula 1, and that that’s, that’s the way it’s going.”

Horner has been linked with a number of teams but with the suggestion that he prefers a part-ownership model akin to Toto Wolff at Mercedes.

Latest rumours have linked him to Ferrari but he has also been mooted for moves to Alpine and Aston Martin.

In the Enstone team, newly appointed team principal Steve Nielsen said no conversations have taken plavce with Horner, but that does not mean they will not in the future.

“As far as I know, no,” said Nielsen at the Singapore Grand Prix when asked if Horner had approached Alpine.

“But Flavio and Christian are old friends, that’s no secret. What they’ve talked about, I don’t know.

“But everything I see and everything I know, there’s no truth in Christian coming to Alpine. But, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. This is Formula 1 after all.”

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