Christian Horner will have had a lot on his mind in the week since being told of his shock sacking.
One of those thoughts likely will have been: what’s next?
At 51 years old and pulled out of the paddock unwillingly and without warning, it’s difficult to imagine that Horner is done with Formula 1. While he has nothing left to prove, the majority of his adult life has been spent in grand prix racing. F1 is what he does.
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But after his glittering management career came to a fizzling halt, will he still be in demand? And after winning 14 titles in 20 years, what sort of challenge would appeal to him?
WHY HORNER WOULD BE HOT PROPERTY
Put simply, he’s a proven winner, and his credentials are unimpeachable.
Horner’s statistics are more than simply impressive. By several metrics he has a right to argue that he’s among the greatest team principals of all time.
Few team bosses steer their teams to wins, fewer still to championships. Among them, a special six have won 10 or more titles.
Horner stacks up well among them.
Team principals by championships
1. Ron Dennis (McLaren): 17 titles (seven constructors, 10 drivers)
2. Frank Williams (Williams): 16 titles (nine constructors, seven drivers)
3. Toto Wolff (Mercedes): 15 titles (eight constructors, seven drivers)
4. Christian Horner (Red Bull Racing): 14 titles (six constructors, eight drivers)
5. Jean Todt (Ferrari): 13 titles (seven constructors, six drivers)
6. Colin Chapman (Lotus): 13 titles (seven constructors, six drivers)
His victory ratio places him even higher on that table, surpassed only by Toto Wolff and Jean Todt.
Team principals by victory rate
1. Toto Wolff (Mercedes): 48.75 per cent (117 wins from 240 starts)
2. Jean Todt (Ferrari): 38.49 per cent (97 wins from 252 starts)
3. Christian Horner (Red Bull Racing): 30.62 per cent (124 wins from 405 starts)
4. Ron Dennis (McLaren): 29.98 per cent (137 wins from 457 starts)
5. Colin Chapman (Lotus): 23,92 per cent (72 wins from 301 starts)
6. Frank Williams (Williams): 18.30 per cent (114 wins from 623 starts)
It’s worth putting those figures into the Red Bull Racing context.
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Horner was the only team boss the team had ever had. With effectively a blank cheque and total faith from Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, he turned Milton Keynes from being grim backmarker Jaguar into a title-winning powerhouse.
Until Laurent Mekies helms his first race for the team in Belgium, Red Bull Racing’s statistics are Horner’s statistics.
Constructors by championship percentage
1. Mercedes: 53.13 per cent (eight constructors, nine drivers from 17 seasons)
2. Red Bull Racing: 35.00 per cent (six constructors and eight drivers from 20 seasons)
3. Ferrari: 21.83 per cent per cent (16 constructors, 15 drivers from 75 seasons*)
4. McLaren: 17.80 per cent (nine constructors and 12 drivers from 59 seasons)
5. Lotus: 17.57 per cent (seven constructors, six drivers from 37 seasons)
6. Williams: 16.33 per cent (nine constructors and seven drivers from 49 seasons)
*No constructors title awarded in the first eight seasons of the Formula 1 world championship.
Red Bull Racing’s victory percentage is similarly impressive historically.
Constructors by victory percentage (30 or more starts)
1. Mercedes: 39.51 per cent (130 wins from 329 starts)
2. Red Bull Racing: 30.62 per cent (124 wins from 405 starts)
3. Ferrari: 22.34 per cent (248 wins from 1110 starts)
4. McLaren: 20.16 per cent (198 wins from 982 starts)
5. Lotus: 16.50 per cent (81 wins from 491 starts)*
6. Williams: 13.21 per cent (114 wins from 863 starts)
*Not including the contentious dual 2010 revival attempts
While Horner’s Red Bull Racing follows Wolff’s Mercedes — and almost all the German marque’s success has come under Wolff — the Englishman can claim a sort of moral victory for having built his team effectively from scratch, whereas his Austrian counterpart had forebears before taking the top job.
His CV, then, is impressive. And considering the field is full of novice team principals — after Wolff, no-one has been in the job for more than three years — he has a considerable experience advantage.
And yet Red Bull Racing let him go — which might give us some hints as to why he may not be a shoo-in to any team he wants.
WHY SOME TEAMS WOULDN’T GO THERE
The likely fact that Horner was sacked for a range of reasons will give some teams at least a little pause for thought.
Perhaps the biggest impediment to Horner finding a new gig is the cloud hanging over him following last year’s workplace scandal.
In late 2023 a woman employed by Red Bull Racing made allegations of coercive, abusive behaviour and sexual harassment against Horner.
Red Bull conducted two investigations — carried out by external lawyers — and twice the complaint was dismissed.
However, the matter is reportedly set to go before the UK Employment Tribunal in January. According to Dutch paper De Telegraaf, British media are suppressed from covering the case due to a reporting restriction order issued by the court at the request of Horner’s legal team.
Prospective employers might be wary about contracting Horner until the case has run its course.
But even if that weren’t a problem, indisputable is that Red Bull Racing has entered a steep decline on Horner’s watch in recent years, and while success in Formula 1 has always been cyclic, the rate at which his team has pulled itself apart has been staggering.
The rot set into Horner’s empire years ago, but it’s taken until the last 18 months to reach the capital.
His central management style was undoubtedly his strength in setting up Red Bull Racing and guiding it through its first successes, but as the team has grown and engaged in new ventures — its powertrains division with Ford, for example — that trait became disadvantageous.
The team was allowed to become totally wrapped around Max Verstappen in a way that’s clearly highly detrimental to performance — something Sergio Pérez said was evident before he even signed up to the team in 2021.
Key staff have been shed, the most significant of whom was Adrian Newey, who reportedly became disillusioned in part by Horner heaping credit for his work onto other staff in the design office.
But the biggest vote of no confidence was Verstappen’s willingness to talk with other teams despite having signed a lucrative long-term deal taking him to the end of 2028.
The prospect of Verstappen, the team’s most performant part, walking away from Milton Keynes was sufficiently clarifying of Red Bull Racing’s problems under Horner’s latter reign.
Of course no empire lasts forever, but that doesn’t mean its constituent parts can’t find success elsewhere.
Phil Jackson won five titles with the LA Lakers after his six with the Chicago Bulls.
Horner doesn’t have to be finished.
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THE FERRARI RUMOUR
Purely coincidental is that only a few races ago Horner was asked about a swirling rumour that he had been approached by Ferrari chairman John Elkann about taking over the principalship of the Italian team.
Horner was reportedly lobbied by Elkann in 2022 to join the team as Mattia Binotto’s replacement. Turned down, Elkann hired Frédéric Vasseur for the following season.
It’s unclear whether Elkann has made subsequent approaches.
But Vasseur is reportedly still under pressure at Ferrari in just his third season in the job. His contract expires at the end of the season, and the lack of public renewal suggests there’s at least some truth to the speculation that Ferrari management is considering its options.
Horner, with a proven record of success, could be an attractive alternative.
But would Ferrari be attractive to Horner?
The Scuderia has appeal for anyone working in Formula 1, but it would be a gamble for the British boss — arguably a bigger gamble than for a driver.
Horner’s presidential style ran its course at Red Bull Racing. It’s impossible to imagine it working at Ferrari.
It’s been a long time since the Ferrari race team sat above the car company. Today it is a division in the broader business, and Horner would be answerable to CEO Benedetto Vigna, chairman Elkann and the rest of the board. Even if he were promised a relatively long leash, it would be far shorter than that he enjoyed while building Red Bull Racing.
And it would be brave to assume Horner would be able to break Ferrari’s lifetime dedication to managerial bloodshed.
But if Horner did harbour any kind of ambition to join Ferrari, ironically he made the case against himself only a few weeks ago when asked about Vasseur’s apparently precarious position.
“I think in any organisation stability is tremendously important,” he said. “I think Fred is a very capable manager.
“He’s obviously managing what effectively is a national team in Ferrari, and with that comes expectation and pressure. He’s still relatively new to the role, and it takes time to put the right processes in place, the right people, the right culture.
“There are no silver bullets in this business. It’s about collectively getting a group of people to work towards one objective, and with Ferrari, there is the added pressure of national expectation.”
On paper the Italian team wouldn’t appear to be the logical next step for Horner. But then the allure of becoming a title-winning Ferrari boss can never be discounted.
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THE ALPINE RUMOUR
The other rumour to have gained traction since Horner’s sacking is that he could be the man to finally break Alpine out if its bust-bust cycle.
The French-owned team is at the lowest ebb since Renault bought it back in 2016. It’s currently 10th and last in the constructors championship with debatable prospects of improving, and it’s turned to disgraced former team boss Flavio Briatore to guide it back to competitiveness.
On Briatore’s watch the team has burnt through rookie Jack Doohan, whom the team had invested heavily in as a junior and reserve driver, and is considering turfing his replacement, Franco Colapinto.
It’s a dire set-up, but it’s a similar position in which Jaguar ended up when Red Bull bought it and installed Horner as team boss.
But unlike in 2005, Horner isn’t a 31-year-old F1 newcomer.
Joining Alpine would mean answering not only to Briatore but also the Alpine hierarchy and ultimately the Renault board.
It’s important to note Renault is currently without a CEO, and until it has one, it’s hard to know what position the company will take on owning a Formula 1 team. That’s especially true given this week Renault considerably downgraded its economic outlook for the year.
Being a cog in a misfiring machine isn’t going to cut it for Horner.
And Alpine anyway has only recently hired F1 veteran Steve Nielsen as managing director, a role described with responsibilities akin to a team principal.
But Horner could bypass those problems by taking a stake in the team.
It wouldn’t be an unusual set-up.
Mercedes, for example, has just a 33 per cent stake in its Formula 1 team; the remaining two-thirds of the business is split evenly between Toto Wolff and British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe.
Renault has long denied rumours that it’s open to selling, but speculation has been stubborn. The BBC reported this week that it’s open to selling around a 20 per cent stake in the team.
With 24 per cent of the team already owned by a group of investors that includes American actor Ryan Reynolds, Renault would be left with only a slim majority share — assuming it didn’t sell more.
Alpine was valued at $1.36 billion when that 24 per cent stake was sold in 2023. Some estimates place its 2025 value at more than $2 billion.
Horner, wealthy though he is, wouldn’t be able to go it alone, but he is the sort of person some wealthy backers might consider a reliable leader of a meaningful investment.
Briatore himself, having decided to return to Formula 1, could be a powerful ally if he were willing, as would be Bernie Ecclestone if he were interested in investing into the sport he used to run, picking just two hypothetical but conceivable examples. Horner appears to get along well with both.
With skin in the game, Horner would have something he never had at Red Bull Racing: top-level control and mastery of his own destiny.
There are of course other possibilities.
Like Verstappen is tipped to do, Horner will likely wait to appraise the lay of the land next season, under the new rules. Only then can he make an informed decision about where his efforts might be best directed — and only then will any prospective teams be in a position to decide whether it wants him in its ranks.
There are also left-field options. Horner was once tipped to replace Ecclestone when he was F1 CEO. Incumbent chief executive Stefano Domenicali only recently extended his contract to the end of 2029. Might Horner bide his time until F1’s top job next becomes available?
Little is certain in the aftermath of his shock sacking, but it would be hard to believe we’ve seen the last of Christian Horner in Formula 1.