Red Bull CEO opens up on Christian Horner firing for the first time

Red Bull GmbH CEO Oliver Mintzlaff has spoken out about the shock sacking of Christian Horner this summer.

The British team principal had been with the team from the start in the mid-2000s, overseeing all 14 of their combined drivers' and constructors' titles.

In July, the Brit was sacked with Red Bull sat down in fourth in the constructors' championship, with Laurent Mekies promoted up from Racing Bulls to replace him.

Since Mekies took over the team, the Milton Keynes-based outfit saw somewhat of a resurgence, going on to win six more grands prix in the final nine races of the season, and star driver Max Verstappen was able to properly mount a challenge for the drivers' championship.

In the end, Verstappen finished just two points behind champion Lando Norris having at one stage been 104 points off the top of the championship.

Now, Mintzlaff - who himself admitted that he doesn't often tend to give interviews - has spoken in an interview with De Telegraaf about the decision to axe Horner, suggesting that the team didn't want to just live off the past.

"I'm not a so-called hire-and-fire manager, someone who just fires people. Christian has a fantastic track record with the team and achieved a great deal of success. Everyone here at the company, myself included, appreciates him for what he's done.

"But this is also part of a professional organisation. You can't keep relying on history, and we felt it was time to turn the page and start a new chapter. That wasn't an easy decision, but we didn't make it overnight either."

Red Bull begin new era

With Horner, Helmut Marko, Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley all gone from the team that won back-to-back constructors' titles in 2022 and 2023, this latest iteration of the team feels like Red Bull 2.0.

They have been much more harmonious since Mekies took over, but the question now is whether he and the rest of the team can imitate the supreme success that their predecessors achieved.

Red Bull are beginning a new era of power unit production in 2026, supplying themselves and sister team Racing Bulls with power units in partnership with Ford.

This project is likely to have a few teething issues having abandoned their partnership with Honda, but it's an exciting time for the racing outfit, and they'll want to rebuild to become a dominant team once more in the future.

It remains to be seen, too, whether Mekies can encourage Verstappen to stay with the team beyond the upcoming 2026 season.

Verstappen's long-term future has been called into question in each of the last two seasons, and if Red Bull are set for a rebuilding phase over the next few years, Verstappen will likely leave and find a team who can allow him to challenge for championships now.

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