Martin Brundle clarifies Verstappen involvement in Christian Horner sacking

Martin Brundle has clarified whether Max Verstappen’s camp influenced Christian Horner’s axe from F1.

Red Bull confirmed after Silverstone that Horner would no longer serve as their team principal, and would be replaced by Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies.

The decision shocked the F1 paddock and fans alike, with Martin Brundle not exempt from those left bewildered by Horner’s exit.

Speaking ahead of the on-track action at Spa on Friday, the Sky Sports F1 pundit discussed Horner’s sacking, and said: “I was very surprised, the urgency, the finality of it, the dismissal in the middle of the season after everything Christian’s achieved with the team over the last 20 years, the championships, the victories, they’re quite extraordinary.”

Amid Mercedes’ interest in Verstappen and Red Bull’s decline in performance, Horner’s abrupt axe was interpreted by some as an attempt to keep the champion at the team.

However, Brundle confirmed the Verstappens' position on Horner, and whether they were behind his sacking.

“I’ve had a long chat with Christian, I’ve spoken to Jos Verstappen, we’ve heard from Max Verstappen, I’ve put a request in to talk to Oliver Mintzlaff and Dr Helmut Marko here [in Spa] that hasn’t happened yet," Brundle clarified.

"But it seems clear that it was a decision from Austria, it wasn’t the Verstappens asking for this."

Brundle on Horner’s F1 exit

In 2024, Verstappen’s father - Jos Verstappen - claimed Horner was ‘driving the team apart’ after controversy following an internal investigation into the former boss’ conduct with an employee.

Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing, and Verstappen Sr subsequently repaired his relationship with the Red Bull team principal.

“I mean Jos Verstappen has thrown a lot of hand grenades in in the past 16 months, some of them gone off, he made it clear he thought Christian should move on from time to time but it wasn’t about the Verstappens,” Brundle continued.

“It was the management in Austria wanting to take back control of some of the commercial side of it, Christian didn’t want to let that go… the drivers, the cost cap, the sponsors, the employment of people was all one big story that he wanted to keep hold of and so they’ve made that decision.”

“Presumably, Max could have, if he’d have wanted to, stop it from happening, but he either chose not to or couldn’t, I’m going to assume he chose not to stop Christian being let go.”

“They have an expression, ‘it’s all about the can', and they felt that they wanted to do something with Red Bull going forward, maybe it was a bit too much about Christian and not enough about Red Bull.”

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