Christian Horner has delivered a pointed assessment of the Red Bull empire he once ruled, suggesting the team has lost some of the rebellious spirit that made it Formula 1’s most formidable disruptor under his watch.
More than a year after his abrupt departure from the Milton Keynes outfit in July 2025, the former team principal appears unconvinced that the organisation’s current leadership has preserved the culture that helped transform an energy drinks company into an F1 championship-winning powerhouse.
In an interview with The Guardian, Horner took aim at a shift in Red Bull’s identity under CEO Oliver Mintzlaff and team principal Laurent Mekies, contrasting the outfit’s original appetite for challenging convention with what he sees as a very different operation today.
"Red Bull has been the maverick team. It's pushed the boundaries," Horner stated.
"Only Red Bull would do something crazy enough to build a new engine as a subsidiary of a fizzy drinks manufacturer. Its mantra was to be nonconformist, to be a disrupted. It's a little different now."
The message was hardly subtle. For a man who spent two decades cultivating Red Bull’s image as Formula 1’s rule-bending outsider, the implication is that the team has become less adventurous under its new custodians.
A not-so-subtle dig at Mekies and Mintzlaff
Under the late Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull enjoyed a management structure that gave Horner considerable autonomy over its F1 racing operations.
The Austrian billionaire’s death in 2022 was followed by a gradual shift towards greater corporate oversight, culminating in Horner’s dismissal in July 2025.
Mintzlaff now occupies the senior executive position, while Mekies has inherited the task of running the team on the ground. Horner, who previously brought Mekies into the Red Bull ecosystem, was reluctant to offer a direct verdict on his successor’s leadership.
Asked who really holds the reins today – Mekies or four-time world champion Max Verstappen – Horner initially sidestepped the question.
"I'm not getting drawn into that," Horner laughed before adding: "Ultimately Oliver Mintzlaff is the most senior guy, and obviously Max is a massive asset. I employed Laurent, but I can't judge how he operates."
By emphasising Mintzlaff’s seniority and Verstappen’s importance while declining to assess Mekies, Horner left plenty of room for interpretation.
Whether intended or not, his answer raises questions about where authority now sits within an organisation he once led with an unmistakably personal stamp.
Bitterness behind the bravado?
There is, however, another possible explanation for Horner’s barbs: a dose of lingering bitterness.
Having been unexpectedly removed from the project he helped build, he is now watching Red Bull reap the rewards of a major undertaking that began during his tenure – its first fully in-house power unit.
With Verstappen winning in Bahrain and Singapore, the engine programme is delivering results after Horner’s departure. Mintzlaff has apparently acknowledged the former team boss’s contribution, but that recognition has done little to erase his disappointment.
"I now have a reasonable relationship with Oliver Mintzlaff. He rang the other day and thanked me for all I'd done for the engine," Horner noted.
Read also: Horner reveals what he believes cost him his Red Bull jobYet his next admission exposed the wound that remains beneath the diplomatic language.
"I felt particularly hurt and robbed I didn't have the opportunity to see that Powertrains engine win,” he added.
It is a revealing choice of words from someone who insists he is looking forward, not backwards. Horner may have legitimate concerns about Red Bull’s changing identity, but his own sense of unfinished business inevitably colours the criticism.
And therein lies the awkward question for Mekies and Mintzlaff: is Red Bull losing the maverick spirit that made it great, or is its former boss simply struggling to accept that the team can win without him?
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