Christian Horner and Zak Brown meet for diplomatic dinner with Mohammed Ben Sulayem

Thomas Maher 16 Oct 2025 1:00 PM

FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem met with Christian Horner and McLaren CEO Zak Brown.

Christian Horner, Zak Brown, and FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem made for an unusual trio at a mid-week dinner in London.

Horner may not be currently involved in F1 in an official capacity, but he met with Brown and Ben Sulayem for an evening dinner chat this week.

Zak Brown, Christian Horner, and Mohammed Ben Sulayem meet for dinner

In a post on Instagram shared on Wednesday, FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem shared pictures of himself having met former Red Bull team boss and CEO Christian Horner and current McLaren CEO Zak Brown for a meal.

Ben Sulayem, who is primed for a second term as FIA President when the elections are held in Uzbekistan in December, met with the two men in London on Tuesday night for an arranged dinner. It is unclear which party arranged the evening’s plans.

The dinner is believed to have been a very cordial affair between all three, with the competitive tensions between Brown and Horner understood to have thawed significantly with Horner having been removed from his posts at Red Bull following the British Grand Prix.

Brown has been a nemesis of Horner in recent years, with the American revealing earlier this year that there is “no love lost” between the pair as he “dislikes how he [Horner] rolls”.

But there were no hostilities as the two men met with the FIA President, and it’s believed the meeting was largely with an eye to improving relations rather than being business or F1-focused, with sources indicating to PlanetF1.com that the meeting of three prominent power players in F1 was “purely social” and “informal”.

The dinner meeting came as Brown had spent his week engrossed in court in London, as McLaren has brought IndyCar star Alex Palou to legal battle seeking damages of over $20 million.

Horner’s schedule may not be quite as hectic as it was when working at Red Bull, but he is understood to be engaged in numerous meetings and appointments with investors as he weighs up his options for a potential return to the F1 grid.

As reported on Wednesday morning by PlanetF1.com, Horner is not thought to be engaging in serious talks with Ferrari about potentially replacing Fred Vasseur as team boss, but is eying up the establishment of a new team.

It’s believed that Horner has secured significant financial backing, which could prove instrumental in the creation of a 12th F1 team, with Horner having already met with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali regarding such a project.

If the route back to F1 for Horner is to get a newly-established F1 team on the grid, the first step, as usual, will be the opening of an Expressions of Interest (EOI) process by the FIA.

Earlier this year, while speaking to select media, including PlanetF1.com, Ben Sulayem revealed he is willing to begin an EOI process again, as he’s in favour of more teams than adding on more races to the already packed calendar.

“I still feel that we need more teams [rather] than more races,” he said.

“The drivers are coming to me and saying, ‘Please, no more races’.

“When we opened the Expression of Interest [in 2023, which approved Andretti/Cadillac], what was the outcome based on? Due process, competency framework, and without looking at which company it was, as long as it fulfilled the regulations and the application of the FIA.

“We have an 11th team. I believe we should look into the performance of the 11th team, and then, if there is a Chinese [bid], and I will speak on behalf of them now in front of you, they [FOM] will agree to that, because it is about sustaining the business.”