{"id":494134,"date":"2025-07-09T05:56:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T09:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=494134"},"modified":"2025-07-09T05:58:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T09:58:00","slug":"red-bull-sacks-christian-horner-after-20-years-as-team-principle","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/red-bull-sacks-christian-horner-after-20-years-as-team-principle\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull sacks Christian Horner after 20 years as team principle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Christian Horner has been dismissed from his role as team principal of Red Bull Racing with immediate effect, bringing an end to a remarkable 20-year tenure. Horner, who had led Red Bull since its inception into Formula 1 in 2005, leaves amid a period of significant internal upheaval and declining on-track dominance.<\/p>\n<p>In his place, Laurent Mekies has been appointed CEO of Red Bull Racing, stepping up from his current leadership role at the sister team, Racing Bulls (formerly AlphaTauri).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Laurent Mekies has been appointed CEO of Red Bull Racing, replacing Christian Horner \ud83e\udd1d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/MKEWSWbHIk\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/MKEWSWbHIk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Autosport (@autosport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/autosport\/status\/1942880951798833334?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Red Bull managing director Oliver Mintzlaff praised Horner for his &#8220;tireless commitment, experience, expertise and innovative thinking,&#8221; stating that he played an instrumental role in transforming Red Bull into &#8220;one of the most successful and attractive teams in Formula 1.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">BREAKING: Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2XrqpKISMy\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/2XrqpKISMy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SkySportsNews\/status\/1942877647580655729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Under Horner&#8217;s leadership, Red Bull enjoyed two golden eras. The first came with Sebastian Vettel, who alongside the team captured four consecutive titles between 2010 and 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The second era was marked by Max Verstappen\u2019s dominant run from 2021 to 2024, in which he secured four successive drivers\u2019 titles, with the team claiming constructors\u2019 championships in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p>However, the past 18 months have been fraught with turbulence. Horner was at the center of a major controversy in early 2024 following allegations of inappropriate behavior made by a female colleague\u2014allegations he denied and which were eventually dismissed after an internal appeal process.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As big news stories go, it doesn\u2019t get much bigger in F1! Christian Horner has been sacked this morning by Red Bull. Laurent Mekies will replace him as only the 2nd team principal Red Bull have ever had. Alan Permane becomes TP at Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 David Croft (@CroftyF1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CroftyF1\/status\/1942882677255721462?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Despite being cleared, the episode left a mark on the team\u2019s image and created internal divisions.<\/p>\n<p>Horner\u2019s exit also comes amid a wave of key personnel departures, including the exits of legendary technical director Adrian Newey to Aston Martin and sporting director Jonathan Wheatley to Sauber. The combination of off-track instability and an on-track performance decline has contributed to Red Bull slipping to fourth in the constructors\u2019 standings midway through the 2025 season, trailing McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christian Horner has been dismissed from his role as team principal of Red Bull Racing with immediate effect, bringing an end to a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":494135,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[18595,17680,17289],"news_category":[16921,16715],"gn_keywords":[18669,17900,1081],"acf":{"news_source":"","link_picture":"","announce":"The Brit is leaving the team he joined way back in 2005 after drama-filled 18 months, Laurent Mekies will take his place at Red Bull","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494134"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494138,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494134\/revisions\/494138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494134"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=494134"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=494134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}