The sacking of Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner caught everyone by surprise yesterday, but the truth is that there were many signs pointing to his demise from the team after 20 years. The last 18 months have not been fruitful for Red Bull Racing on the track: they lost the constructor's championship in 2024, will not win neither title in 2025 (Max Verstappen would need a miracle to catch up on the McLaren drivers), and had had several erratic changes including paying for the firing of Sergio Pérez, demoting Liam Lawson after just a few races, and of course the exit of engineer Adrian Newey in April 2024.
There's more (other high-profile figures at Red Bill have left, including sporting director Jonathan Wheatley in August 2024 and strategy chief Will Courtenay in September), and it is well known that Horner was not in good terms with Jos Verstappen, with the father of the F1 champion publicly asking for Horner's departure.
Most of that turmoil can be traced back to February 2024, and the allegations against Christian Horner from a female employee, who accused him of inappropriate and coercive behaviour. The claims were unspecified and the female employee never left anonymity. After an internal investigation, Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing twice by an independent barrister.
However, 24 hours after being exonerated, a series of WhatsApp messages leaked online, supposedly related with the case. Their veracity was never proved. Helmut Marko, former driver and advisor at Red Bull, was suspect of leaking the texts, which caused bigger rifts inside Red Bull, with Max Verstappen pledging loyalty to Marko and shielding him from an exit: if Marko was fired, the Dutch driver would leave too.
While Horner was legally cleared, it's likely that the tension around that case could have had an influence in Newey's departure two months later, and Horner losing more and more trust, all while the team was not producing better sporting results, on the contrary, they were getting worse and worse.