Horner 'crossed the line' at Red Bull claims Brown

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has said he's looking forward to a 'healthier' rivalry with new Red Bull F1 boss Laurent Mekies, after Christian Horner's sacking.

Horner was axed from the team principal role at Red Bull after 20 years, with the Brit taking the Milton Keynes-based outfit to 14 championship titles in that time.

However, Red Bull's results over the last 12 months have left a lot to be desired, faltering in the second half of 2024 to finish third in the constructors' championship, before being sat down in fourth in 2025's teams' championship.

The team have only won two races in 2025, and Max Verstappen has scored 187 of their 194 points, with Mekies' first job likely to be to make the RB21 suitable for both drivers so that they can try and secure a top-three-constructors' championship finish.

Now Brown, whose dominant McLaren team are sat 365 points above Red Bull after 14 races, has said that he is excited to go racing against Mekies rather than Horner.

Brown and Horner had a tumultuous relationship, with the pair regularly getting involved in wars of words, with Horner even at one point calling Brown a 'p****' during Netflix's Drive to Survive.

"It went too far," Brown told The Telegraph. "There’s always going to be politicking in F1; let’s try and shut down their flexi-wings and that stuff, but when you start getting into frivolous allegations, that’s just going too far," the American commented, likely with regard to Red Bull's allegations of McLaren using water to cool their tyres, allegations that were thrown out by the FIA.

"If I look up and down the pit lane now, I see us fighting each other hard politically but the line is not being crossed, and that line got crossed before. So I think that we’ll see a little bit of a change for the better.

"I’m happy Laurent’s in the role he is in,” Brown continued. "I like Laurent, that’ll be healthy, and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.

"There’s always going to be some political aspects to the sport, but I think it is going to be healthier with Laurent. I’m a fan of Laurent, I have known him for a long time, and it’ll be good to go racing against him."

Brown's McLaren lead the way

McLaren's dominance is such that they have already all but wrapped up the constructors' title, while one of their drivers Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris are going to take the drivers' championship away from Verstappen.

However, that dominance may be short lived, and may not extend as long as Red Bull's did between 2022-2024.

That's because of wholesale regulation changes that are set to sweep into the sport from next year, which could see a mix up of the competitive order in F1.

Mercedes are rumoured to be the team to be best-placed to take a step forward in 2026, and Red Bull will be beginning a new era of power unit production, ending their partnership with Honda and instead producing their own power units in partnership with Ford.

Time will tell as to where Brown and Mekies' outfits will be in the pecking order in 2026 and beyond.

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