What is Christian Horner doing after F1 axe? Ex-Red Bull star explains what happens when employees leave team

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What is Christian Horner doing after F1 axe? Ex-Red Bull star explains what happens when employees leave team

Here's what happens when people leave F1 teams

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Sunday 8 February 2026 08:57

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A former Red Bull F1 employee has shed light on what happens when staff like Christian Horner and Adrian Newey leave the team.

While current talk is dominated by 'where' Horner will return to in F1, there is also the question of 'when' he will come back.

The 52-year-old was axed from Red Bull in July 2025 and has recently revealed he intends to make a comeback. However, Horner also said in his most recent interview: "The reality is that until the spring I can’t do anything anyway."

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Horner is likely referring to his gardening leave, a period of time in which an employee cannot work for the duration of a notice period.

In F1, gardening leave is in place to ensure F1 employees do not pass on any confidential information to rival teams, with former Red Bull designer Adrian Newey announcing his exit in May 2024 before he officially joined Aston Martin as managing technical partner in March 2025.

Elsewhere on the grid, Loic Serra was signed to Ferrari in the late spring of 2023 but only arrived in October 2024, and gardening leave often sees a delay on the input on the actual car.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur spoke about the difficulties of gardening leave, and was quoted by Motorsport.com as saying: “When you realise that you have a gap to fill with hiring, you know that a new employee will have to wait 12 months before joining the team.

"After that period, they can start coming to the office, and their contribution will only be visible in the following year’s project.

"So from the moment you need a person to the moment you see the results related to their work, two to three years pass."

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What happens when F1 employees leave a team?

On social media platform 'X', former Red Bull mechanic and Drive to Survive star Calum Nicholas also provided insight into what happens when an F1 employee leaves a team.

One fan asked: "Do F1 employees not sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreement)? The fact that an employee was able to go to another team and just blab about all of their 'secrets' is kind of crazy to me."

Nicholas then explained: "They do to an extent. But your seniority (and pay level) will determine how extensive that is.

"Also, teams tend to rely on gardening leave as a way of delaying the information being passed on. The sport moves so quickly that often if you can delay it by just a year, you may well have moved on enough that it doesn’t hurt too much.

"Realistically though, it’s very hard to enforce without just throwing cash at people to stay with the team, which is now made more difficult by the financial regulations."

Racing Bulls' new technical director Dan Fallows, who also made the switch from Red Bull to Aston Martin in 2022, recently revealed why people leave F1 teams and what happens next.

Writing for RaceTeq, Fallows claimed 'eight to 12 per cent of staff' will be replaced every year at teams, and that often employees look to other teams for personal advancement (think former sporting director at Red Bull Jonathan Wheatley, who is now Audi team principal).

According to Fallows, a contract 'states that you can give notice at any time, with six months before you can actually leave.' He then added that employees 'might be sent home for the remainder of the day' and asked only to take their 'personal possessions' with them.

In 'extreme examples', Fallows revealed he has also seen 'staff being escorted out of the building with no opportunity to speak to anyone'.

Once invited back into the factory, the departing employee can be placed in a different office with a 'new computer' and have to use a 'new email address and login.' Here, an employee will work on a 'new' or 'vague' role until they leave the company.

It's hardly an ideal environment, being cut-off from the team you once worked so closely with, and Fallows then added that staff can 'either negotiate a shortening of their notice period or be sent home' and not work out the remainder of their notice.

Either way it's clear. Once an F1 employee hands in their notice, they are no longer required access to the team's main operations. And you can't imagine Horner lingering in a corner office of the Milton Keynes factory, can you?

Written by

Sheona Mountford - F1 Journalist

Sheona Mountford is a motorsport journalist specialising in F1. As a writer and contributor, she covers a wide range of motorsport series from F1 to F1 Academy, responsible for breaking news, live race coverage and in depth analysis of the sport and the culture around it.

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F1 Red Bull Christian Horner Calum Nicholas