If Christian Horner was sacked by Red Bull because Max Verstappen’s camp wanted him gone, as has been alleged, Guenther Steiner says that a “weird thing” for a driver to demand.
Red Bull announced on Wednesday that Horner had been released from his ‘operational duties with effect from today’, with former Racing Bulls team boss Laurent Mekies replacing him.
Was Christian Horner’s sacking the ‘price’ for Max Verstappen?
It brought an end to a tumultuous 18 months for the 51-year-old, who last year was hit by a scandal before Red Bull’s on the track began to peter off as rivals, led by McLaren, closed the gap.
Horner was cleared of wrongdoing in the scandal, which saw a staff member accuse him of inappropriate behaviour. He remained in his role as Red Bull team principal, but the cracks began to show.
Red Bull lost design guru Adrian Newey, followed by long-serving sporting director Jonathan Wheatley, while Verstappen’s father Jos publicly called for Horner to step down.
The former Formula 1 driver claimed in an interview with Mail Sport back in March that “the team is in danger of being torn apart” if Horner stayed in post, and would “explode” from its current state. He added a few months later that he was “completely finished” with Horner.
Verstappen, caught between his father and his team principal, said the spat was “not nice”, adding: “Not for myself, not for my dad, not for Christian or for the team. Because, you don’t want these things to happen.”
But while tensions appeared to die down, they flared again with Jos and Horner having “another argument or a heated exchange” at Silverstone, according to Ralf Schumacher.
A few days later, Horner was gone.
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It’s added to the speculation that emerged before Silverstone that the Verstappen camp wanted Horner to have less influence at the team. F1-Insider went as far as to claim that they’d explicitly informed Red Bull management that Verstappen’s future with the team hinged on a leadership change.
That was put to Steiner during a Red Flag podcast.
“It could be that Max put that as one of the things he wanted,” he said.
“It’s a weird thing for a driver to say, ‘somebody has to go so that I stay’. It is never said as clear as this because then you really fire at somebody, and as the world-best F1 driver, you shouldn’t have to be doing that.”
But, on the other hand, he says it could be a case that Red Bull saw it that way and made the call to do whatever was necessary to retain their four-time World Champion.
“But,” he continued, “maybe they [Red Bull] jumped to the conclusion and said if we want to keep Max something needs to change and we let Christian go.
“Because obviously, Jos and Christian, obviously they didn’t see eye to eye on quite a few things. It was publicly known and publicly played out as well.
“So that’s never good for either, for the team, nor for the driver.
“Max always kept out of that, very smartly. So maybe the management at Red Bull said if we want to make Max happy to keep him, we have to do something, and obviously, do you want the best driver in the world?
“Yes. He comes at a price.”
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