Why Red Bull 2.0 left no room for renegade Helmut Marko

Helmut Marko is leaving Red Bull after 20 years, but, characteristically, it doesn’t appear like he wants to go quietly…

The 82-year-old Austrian is departing Red Bull, following Christian Horner out the door after outlasting his former colleague by just a few short months.

Helmut Marko leaves Red Bull

With peace having broken out at Red Bull in recent months, following the shock axing of Christian Horner as the Austrian parent company sought to increase its control of the racing team, Helmut Marko remained the idiosyncrasy.

With a new management structure in place as the affable Laurent Mekies assumed Horner’s vacated positions, reporting to Red Bull GmbH CEO Oliver Mintzlaff, it marked a whole new chapter for the Milton Keynes-based squad. Given the desire for a fresh start, how did the notoriously renegade Helmut Marko fit in with the new culture?

The reality, it appears, is that he didn’t. With Mekies saying all the right things to present a more corporately-friendly image for Red Bull, Marko’s old-school nature stood out like a sore thumb. His ad-hoc media sessions over a Grand Prix weekend, held without any Red Bull press officer to listen in – almost unheard of these days – continued.

His willingness to talk to any journalist who stuck a microphone in front of him remained unabated, and, as it has in the past, his enthusiasm for speaking his mind landed him in some bother.

Marko has never been one to bite his tongue, and, over the years, he has given countless interviews in which he has given away sensitive information, whether that be something related to internal machinations or seemingly more benevolent matters such as setup choices, the specification of parts being used, or even the tactics that he might have had in mind.

It was tremendously entertaining, and a nightmare for the press officers of Red Bull, who were powerless to stop him. After all, Marko had been the company founder Dietrich Mateschitz’s right-hand man in F1. He didn’t answer to anyone at the F1 team, of which he was a director, with his contract being with the parent company.

Given his remit as a general ‘advisor’ to Red Bull’s F1 operations, as well as his driver talent-spotting abilities, the occasional dramas caused by Marko’s comments were tolerated under the previous regime, a dynamic that stemmed back to early 2005 when Marko was Horner’s senior in the Red Bull hierarchy.

But, following the death of Mateschitz in late 2022, and the emergence of a purported power struggle within the halls of Milton Keynes, the cracks became evident.

As Red Bull became synonymous with Horner, a robust character unafraid of taking centre stage, Marko made it clear that he had no intention of ceding any power or stepping back, saying that his future was his to decide and not that of “Mr. Horner”. He also has since revealed that he did “everything possible” to stop Horner from taking control of the team.

Discord in the ranks grew, but was largely painted over as the performance of the car continued to land Red Bull race wins and championships.

In mid-2025, that all came to a sudden end. McLaren’s clear superiority, and the ongoing discontent amidst rumours that the talismanic Max Verstappen could be tempted elsewhere, meant Mintzlaff made his choice. Horner was sacrificed to quell the noise around Red Bull, and the new structure was put in place.

Marko, having been one of the voices in Mintzlaff’s ear, had won the battle but, in doing so, destabilised the equilibrium, however uneasy that was, that had kept him secure for so long. As one senior source expressed to PlanetF1.com shortly after Horner’s axing, the intent of the change was to make the F1 team “about the can, not the man”.

Off the leash, Marko made some unilateral decisions over the weeks that followed Horner’s exit. It’s understood he told Isack Hadjar of ‘his’ decision to promote the French driver to Red Bull as far back as the Dutch Grand Prix, whilst also signing Irish driver Alex Dunne to the junior driver programme, all without any involvement or consultation with Mekies or Mintzlaff.

While Hadjar did go on to earn his promotion, it came about from Mekies and Mintzlaff eventually agreeing with Marko on the topic, both of whom are said to have been annoyed by the octogenarian doing exactly what the removal of Horner had been intended to achieve; making the team less about individuals.

As for Dunne, the Irish driver is said to have impressed Marko in his initial Red Bull evaluations. While Mintzlaff is said to have agreed with Marko’s assessment of the driver, that his signing came so quickly after the Hadjar incident meant a stand had to be taken, and Mintzlaff ordered the dissolution of the contract, a costly endeavour.

At the Singapore Grand Prix, facets of Marko’s behaviour in the paddock, related to his personal life, are understood to have angered Chalerm Yoovidhya, the head of the Thai majority shareholder at Red Bull GmbH.

This was followed by Marko’s incendiary comments in Qatar, in which he suggested, on live television, that Kimi Antonelli had intentionally made a mistake to allow the championship contender Lando Norris through, damaging Verstappen’s title hopes. These weren’t comments said in the heat of battle, as was the case for GianPiero Lambiase, who quickly apologised to Mercedes for a similar radio comment, but said in the aftermath to both television and print media, including PlanetF1.com, on site in Qatar.

The events of the days after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix are open to interpretation. Certainly, officially, the stance is that Marko made the decision to leave Red Bull behind, a decision he had made regardless of whether or not Verstappen won a fifth consecutive title.

That much was confirmed in a press release from the parent company, in which Mintzlaff expressed his regret at the decision Marko had made. The reality is that Marko’s time at Red Bull was done the moment the door shut on Horner. In a more corporate environment, how could an uncontrollable renegade be permitted to fly in the face of the new, clean-cut image of Red Bull?

And, now that his time at Red Bull is coming to an end, the gloves are coming off. Even before the dust has settled, the Austrian has started hitting out at aspects he found unsavoury from his time with the team.

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Helmut Marko lashes out at Christian Horner

Over the weekend following Abu Dhabi, Marko lashed out at Horner in an extraordinary attack in an interview with De Limburger, in which he accused the former team boss and CEO of being a “liar”, although he did not offer any examples of this alleged dishonesty.

He also spoke of ” dirty games” and “fabrications” that had been made about him, offering the example of him speaking about Sergio Perez’s nationality and putting that forward as a negative aspect in his driving.

The incident, which caused a furore in 2023, came during a live interview on Red Bull’s own ServusTV, and led to him releasing a formal apology via the same medium. It’s unclear how that example could be viewed as a fabrication.

He also suggested that Horner had sought to have him suspended at the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix due to comments he made about the Red Bull-Ford power unit that will power the car in 2026. However, as he himself acknowledged at the time, the possibility of suspension came about as a result of Marko being investigated in the wake of alleged information pertinent to the separate internal investigation into Horner’s behaviour being leaked.

This incident had occurred over the Bahrain weekend just prior, and Red Bull was exploring all possibilities in the aftermath.

But Marko’s position was kept safe by the intervention of Max Verstappen, who made it clear that his own position in the team was contingent on Marko’s. Any possibility of the Austrian being moved aside or removed quickly disappeared, but it’s notable that there has been no such intervention this time around, as the new management structure of Mekies and Mintzlaff, as well as Ahmet Mercan, is said to have the full confidence of the Verstappens.

Marko, who unquestionably has contributed hugely to the success of Red Bull in Formula 1, may have believed he had won the fight when Horner was ousted, but he has simply lasted one round longer than his former colleague. Indeed, in an organisation that so ruthlessly cut out Horner after so much success, did Marko believe that he was immune to the same scrutiny? While Horner may have felt some loyalty towards Marko, given their shared history, why would Mintzlaff and Mekies have any towards him?

In his De Limburger interview, he said: “A lot has changed at the team in a short time,” Marko said, before mysteriously adding, “You think you know people well, but in the end, that turns out not to be the case…”

Aspects of the same interview appear to betray Marko’s version of events as adjacent to reality, specifically that the decision to depart was his alone. Labelling the Red Bull release as “nonsense”, he revealed that he had to make a phone call to Verstappen to explain his departure, an exchange he said was “melancholic”.

Verstappen had been due to be at the same dinner in Dubai at which Marko met with Mintzlaff, but had been unable to, due to logistics. But, given Marko’s existing contract for 2026, if the decision was his alone, why did he appear to have no control over the timeline of his exit, or of the news becoming public?

Increasingly isolated in a team that had begun moving on, Marko cast a sad figure as he sat in the paddock with a small handful of VIPs in the aftermath of his final race. Nursing a beer outside the otherwise empty Red Bull hospitality, he lingered in the moment that he had made ‘his’ choice to walk away.

His decision to lash out so quickly is potentially a breach of the terms of a standard non-disclosure agreement upon leaving a role within F1, although it’s unlikely this is of particular concern for Marko, who has already confirmed he has no interest in finding another role in the sport, although could risk the full payout of the rather large sum he is mooted to have received to depart.

This means any further mud-slinging could be quite one-way, given that Horner is not only likely bound by a similar NDA, but his post-July silence suggests he is far more inclined to obey the terms of one.

Marko may have thought himself a winner in the war that erupted in the wake of Mateschitz’s death, but time has proven that he merely remained standing a little longer on the battlefield.

In the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, “Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.”

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