If Red Bull can fire long-serving team principal Christian Horner, Guenther Steiner has warned Yuki Tsunoda that he won’t be spared if the team believes he’s not doing the job.
Red Bull called time on Horner’s 20-year tenure as Red Bull team principal when they announced on Wednesday that he had been released from his ‘operational duties with effect from today’, though they did not give a reason for the decision.
First Liam Lawson, then Christian Horner, next Yuki Tsunoda?
The announcement came as a shock to many, including Horner, as under his leadership, Red Bull claimed six Drivers’ Championship titles and eight Constructors’ crowns.
Even this season, although their success has been blunted by a one-man RB21 and McLaren’s rise, Red Bull have still won two Grands Prix and Max Verstappen sits third in the Drivers’ standings
But as of Wednesday, former Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies sits in what used to be Horner’s seat.
“I was pretty surprised as well when it happened,” Steiner said as he weighed in on Horner’s sacking on the Red Flags podcast. “I mean, you know that there was something going on at Red Bull, I think we all were aware of it.
“We cannot say ‘Oh, we didn’t know that something was going on’ because it’s more than a year now since we had whatever it was called, that scandal in the beginning of last yea.
“It wasn’t happy days anymore at Red Bull, I would say. but I didn’t expect that.
“I mean, if something like this happens, normally Red Bull is pretty good in managing it a little bit, but this came completely out of the blue to me.
“Obviously, maybe not at Red Bull, but I think nothing was out there that it will happen. You know, things change and things move on.”
And things moving on is the former Haas team boss’s warning to the under-fire Tsunoda.
Red Bull team-mates: F1 2025 head-to-head stats
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
After all, if Red Bull can sack Horner, they wouldn’t have an issue saying goodbye to Tsunoda.
The Japanese driver was parachuted in at Red Bull at the Japanese Grand Prix when he replaced Liam Lawson after the New Zealander’s two races with the Milton Keynes team ended with back-to-back P20s in the two qualifying sessions in China, and without him being able to recover to the points.
Tsunoda, though, has only done marginally better.
He’s managed to score only seven points in 10 race weekends and currently sits on a run of five races outside of the points. It’s meant Red Bull are languishing down in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship where Verstappen has scored 165 of the team’s 172 points.
Steiner believes Tsunoda should take Horner’s sacking as a warning about his own future.
“Yuki Tsunoda needs to make points,” said the Italian, “otherwise I really think latest end of the year, he’s out of there, but it could be before.
“As much we love Yuki, because I love him as well, it’s one of these things. He needs to bring the performance.
“I think this is saying, ‘we let Christian Horner go, we changed Liam Lawson’.
“So it’s one of these things. If he doesn’t shape up, he will not be there for a long time anymore.”
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