{"id":494497,"date":"2025-07-21T12:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T16:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=494497"},"modified":"2025-07-21T12:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T16:09:14","slug":"zak-brown-not-surprised-by-christian-horners-sacking-at-red-bull","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/zak-brown-not-surprised-by-christian-horners-sacking-at-red-bull\/","title":{"rendered":"Zak Brown &#8220;Not surprised&#8221; by Christian Horner\u2019s sacking at Red Bull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>McLaren team boss Zak Brown had his comments on Christian Horner\u2019s recent dismissal from Red Bull Racing, saying he wasn\u2019t shocked by the team principal\u2019s exit, even if the timing caught him slightly off guard.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Canadian broadcaster TSN, Brown commented: \u201cI&#8217;m maybe [surprised by] the timing, but not the result. There&#8217;s been a lot of drama there the last couple of years and it doesn&#8217;t seem like that drama has been calming down \u2013 maybe been getting worse. So I&#8217;m not surprised.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Zak Brown when asked if he was surprised by Red Bull firing Christian Horner \ud83d\udc40 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vO7JeBSWfW\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/vO7JeBSWfW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ESPNF1\/status\/1947248872532664586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Horner, who had led Red Bull since their debut in 2005 and overseen multiple championship-winning campaigns, was officially sacked as team principal and CEO on 9 July, just three days after Max Verstappen finished fifth at the British Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>Horner was at the center of serious allegations made by a female employee, accusing him of sexual harassment and coercive behavior. Although two internal investigations cleared him of any wrongdoing and Horner denied all allegations, the situation cast a long shadow over the team.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Zak Brown reacts to Christian Horner being sacked by Red Bull. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/N1ohLAMonA\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/N1ohLAMonA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SkySportsF1\/status\/1947266334225547416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Following the scandal, Red Bull entered a period of instability. Chief technical officer Adrian Newey resigned in April last year, reportedly at least in part due to the fallout from the allegations. Newey has since joined Aston Martin. Other high-profile departures followed, including sporting director Jonathan Wheatley, who is now heading Sauber ahead of its rebranding as Audi\u2019s works team next year.<\/p>\n<p>Horner has been replaced by Frenchman Laurent Mekies, who steps in from sister team Racing Bulls to take on the dual role of team principal and CEO as Red Bull looks to steady the ship in the wake of a turbulent chapter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>McLaren team boss Zak Brown had his comments on Christian Horner\u2019s recent dismissal from Red Bull Racing, saying he wasn\u2019t shocked by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":494498,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[18595,17020,17289,20269],"news_category":[16921,16715],"gn_keywords":[18669,18097,17900,20413],"acf":{"news_source":"","link_picture":"","announce":"McLaren boss expected for Horner to be sacked by Red Bull after turbulent couple of seasons ","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\/494497"}],"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=494497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494499,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494497\/revisions\/494499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494497"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=494497"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=494497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}