‘No spike’- Red Bull demise theory dismissed after Horner’s sacking

Red Bull’s decision to boot Christian Horner out the door last week won’t have a football-style effect on the F1 team with a spike “neither down or up,” says Guenther Steiner.

Red Bull shocked the Formula 1 paddock, including Horner, last week when it announced the long-serving team boss had been relieved of his duties with immediate effect.

Guenther Steiner on Christian Horner’s exit: It’s not a football team

‘Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today (9 July 2025) and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing,’ read the statement.

And in one simple sentence, with no reason given, the Milton Keynes squad brought Horner’s 20-year tenure as team boss to an abrupt end after six Drivers’ Championship titles and eight Constructors’ crowns.

As the shock waves reverberated up and down the paddock, it remains to be seen what effect, if any, the decision has on Red Bull.

It has been speculated that it will ensure reigning World Champion Max Verstappen’s future with the team, as ‘Team Verstappen’ reportedly wanted Horner to have less influence and power at Red Bull. Today, he has none.

But could it be a decision that comes back to bite?

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Horner was instrumental in transforming Red Bull from an energy drink-owned Formula 1 team into a powerhouse in the sport, with two notable periods of dominance during his 20-year rein.

Former F1 driver Nigel Mansell believes it will be “a struggle for Red Bull to be as competitive” going forward while Damon Hill declared “a palace Coup rarely has good outcomes“.

But according to former Haas F1 team boss Steiner, Horner’s exit won’t have any impact on the team at all. At least not in the coming months or even into F1 2026.

“Performance in the short term, there is not a big impact, either way – new people coming or old people going. You know, because they are racing cars. It’s not a football team that you bring a new player in that the next game, we have got the new star there, or the new talent there,” he told Business of Sport.

“If you have got a team, an F1 team, if a team is good, it takes years to get bad. But also, if you are bad, it takes years to build up to be good again, so you cannot judge.

“Christian going, I think in the next races it will, or in the next year of races, there will be no change.

“Obviously because the scene is set already, for example, for next year. The cars are under development, Red Bull is doing their own PU next year, their own engine, everything is all set up.

“If now somebody comes in and changes, he wouldn’t have the time, or she wouldn’t have the time, to do anything, because everything is such a long lead time.

“So you will not see now Christian leaves, a spike – neither down or up.”

“It will be more what is next. How they are doing it, how they are restructuring?

That, however, is not the sum of the answers that Red Bull will need to answer internally.

Sacking Horner last week, Red Bull’s management did not reveal why they’d made the decision. They reportedly didn’t tell Horner either.

But in order to move forward, Steiner says it needs to acknowledge what went wrong and how it can move forward.

“What were their actual problems with Christian?” he continued, “because I don’t know. I mean, the team still won races this year, so it isn’t this bad.

“Obviously they are not where they want to be as manufacturer, but I put that one down that they cannot get a driver – a second driver – that can keep up with Max because if you take Max out, I think Red Bull would actually be last in the championship.”

Asked whether saying goodbye to Horner was the right call, Steiner said: “I don’t know why he was let go. So it’s difficult to say right or wrong if you don’t know what it was.”

Pressed on whether he would have kept Horner, he replied: “I would say Christian, he won a lot of championships, but there was something which wasn’t working internally, there was too much friction.

“At some stage, you have to make change, because it takes if there is friction, that takes energy and people don’t focus on the right thing to make the team and the car better, but focus on how to position themselves in the team.

“It nothing else but a big corporate. A big corporates normally struggles when there is power struggle. If it is all clear and plain sailing, companies are successful.

“But I don’t know what happened internally. And for me, it was a little bit surprising what happened.”

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