Helmut Marko ‘informed of Red Bull decision’ as exit door beckons after 20 years

Helmut Marko has allegedly already been informed he will not be part of the Red Bull F1 operation in 2026.

The 82-year-old Austrian is understood to have been informed his time working with Red Bull has come to an end, despite having one year left to see out on his current contract.

Helmut Marko ‘has been told’ Red Bull tenure has ended

Red Bull GmbH has confirmed that Helmut Marko has stepped down from his role since this article was published

Amidst rumours that Marko and Red Bull are set to split before the F1 2026 season, well-placed sources have indicated to PlanetF1.com that the Austrian has already been informed of his removal before even having the chance to leave the United Arab Emirates after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

As well as being a director of the Red Bull Racing team, Marko has one year left on his deal with Red Bull GmbH, but is believed to have been informed that his services are no longer required, effective immediately.

He has been the last remaining piece of the former long-standing power structure at Red Bull Racing, with the Austrian serving as the ‘man on the ground’ for the company’s late founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, when Red Bull first entered Formula 1 in 2005.

Marko, together with former team boss Christian Horner, formed a formidable partnership, with the team becoming one of the most competitive of the past two decades as the Milton Keynes-based squad emerged first as championship contenders in 2009 and, shortly after, multiple title winners.

But, in the wake of Mateschitz’s death in 2022 and the transfer of shares to his son Mark, who appointed Oliver Mintzlaff to the role of CEO as one of a three-man board at Red Bull, a power struggle began to emerge within the F1 team under Horner’s leadership.

This eventually ended in the bombshell axing of Horner from his roles as team boss and CEO of Red Bull Racing, as well as being removed as a director of the various companies under Red Bull’s F1 umbrella. He was succeeded in all of these roles by Laurent Mekies, with Mintzlaff turning to the French engineer after Mekies held down the team boss role at Racing Bulls from the start of 2024.

With Marko having seemingly come through the transitional period unscathed, it appears that tensions between the Austrian and the new power structure of Mintzlaff and Mekies have escalated through various incidents.

As a representative of Red Bull GmbH and not Red Bull Racing, Marko has become infamous for speaking to the media as he pleases, often without any oversight from the team, and his revealing of more sensitive information on a regular basis is believed to have been a growing strike against him.

This was behaviour largely tolerated while working with Horner, who was willing to give Marko greater freedom in this regard.

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As reported by PlanetF1.com on Monday, former McLaren junior Alex Dunne reached an advanced stage of negotiations with Marko, with a deal signed to bring the 20-year-old Irishman into the fold of the Red Bull programme. This was done entirely by Marko, acting alone, with no input from Mekies and Mintzlaff.

Upon the discovery of the contract with Dunne, Marko’s unilateral decision-making is said to have been a further strike against him, particularly in the eyes of Mintzlaff, who has set out to bring control of Red Bull’s F1 operations entirely back under the GmbH umbrella and his leadership.

The ordered termination of the deal is said to have triggered a penalty clause in the contract, meaning Dunne is set to receive a termination fee said to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. If the sum is this large, Red Bull’s payment is likely to be going some way towards Dunne’s F2 campaign with Rodin in 2026, as well as compensating for the exit payment shelled out to McLaren to leave the Woking-based team’s development programme.

The ice under Marko is said to have melted further at the Singapore Grand Prix, with the head of the Thai shareholding in Red Bull, Chalerm Yoovidhya, understood to have become upset with aspects of Marko’s behaviour in the paddock.

The final straw is said to have been comments made after the Qatar Grand Prix, in which he insinuated on live television that 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli had intentionally let title hopeful Lando Norris through to take a position from him on the penultimate lap of the race.

Antonelli had already started to receive significant social media abuse in the immediate aftermath, with this toxicity further fuelled by Marko’s comments.

The incident is said to have incensed Mekies to the point where he’s believed to have been personally involved in the apology statement issued by the team afterwards.

While Marko’s position within Red Bull has come under pressure in the past, including his own admission of believing he would be suspended during the team’s investigation of alleged leaked material during the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, Max Verstappen intervened to make it clear that Marko’s continued involvement was of critical importance to him.

This importance is said to have waned, with the Verstappen camp convinced of the strength of the new leadership structure of Mekies, Mintzlaff, and Ahmet Mercan.

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