Martin Brundle has revealed that he saw Christian Horner just days before his shock sacking last week.
Red Bull shocked the F1 community last week as they fired their team principal of 20 years, with Laurent Mekies installed as his replacement.
Horner was replaced with immediate effect after a difficult season, while no reason was given, it appears that numerous factors played into the sacking.
He becomes the latest in a long line of ruthless sackings at Red Bull, which included drivers such as Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson. But Brundle has now revealed he saw Horner just days before his firing.
PA
|Martin Brundle spoke to Christian Horner days before he was sacked
“I saw Christian on Monday at the Eddie Jordan Memorial, and he was very, very quiet and very introvert, I must say. Clearly, a bit out of sorts,” he told Sky Sports.
“So I’m perhaps not totally surprised. I’m saddened, because I think Christian’s done an incredible job picking up the bones of what was the Jaguar F1 team and what he’s achieved in the last 20 years there. And I consider him a friend. So it’s a pity it’s ended so abruptly like this.
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“I did try to speak to Christian before we did this. He said he’ll talk later.”
Horner had been at the helm of Red Bull since its inception in 2005; however, Brundle claims tensions have risen over recent years, and have now seemed to reach a boiling point: “I can’t help but think the wheels started to come off when Dietrich Mateschitz died.”
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|Martin Brundle has claimed Christian Horner has been under severe pressure since 2022
Dietrich Mateschitz was the founder of Red Bull Racing, who passed away in 2022.
Horner has also been mired in controversy when a female employee accused him of 'inappropriate behaviour'. He was later cleared of any wrondoing.
Brundle, however, believes Horner has been in a compromised position since: “To all intents and purposes, I think he’s been a passenger as well since Bahrain last year, when that news came out, and the tail has been wagging the dog a bit.
“Because obviously Team Verstappen had been briefing certain journalists and Christian’s just come more and more under pressure, and he lost key people like Adrian Newey, like Rob Marshall, like Jonathan Wheatley.
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“I think his failing on that was convincing himself and trying to convince everybody else that they weren’t really doing that much anymore, and it really didn’t matter, he’d got a better crew behind them. But that wasn’t correct, and I think we’ve seen [that]."
Horner will now be replaced with Mekies, who has been promoted from the sister team Racing Bulls, and will now lead the team for the remainder of the season.
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Brundle was asked if he believed Team Verstappen gave Red Bull chiefs an ultimatum, to which he replied: “I don’t know, but what’s absolutely clear is that the Verstappen camp have been lobbing in hand grenades for quite some months now, and some of them have gone off, and it’s been pretty relentless in that respect.”
Red Bull will not have much time to adjust to the change as the team gears up for the second half of the season, beginning this week with the Belgian Grand Prix.