Jeroen Bleekemolen is not surprised by the departure of Christian Horner as CEO and team boss of Red Bull Racing. The Brit was dismissed on Wednesday. Bleekemolen does not rule out that the dismissal could influence the future of Max Verstappen.
“It was bound to happen at some point, and now it has: Horner is leaving Red Bull after twenty years. There has, of course, been a lot of controversy over the power dynamics in recent years, with Chalerm Yoovidhya and Mark Mateschitz. The two have also had their fair share of disputes, and it’s said that Horner was in the first camp. But I think he overplayed his hand.”
Bleekemolen points to last year when Horner was accused of crossing boundaries. “Such things don’t help, they come to light and are then somewhat swept under the rug. We don’t know exactly what happened there, but things exploded and it’s not working. That’s also part of it. That’s how it all started to crumble early last year.”
And now? According to Bleekemolen, a lot could change, possibly even affecting the future of Max Verstappen. “I think Red Bull needs a reset. And it could be a reset that Verstappen starts to believe in. Because now you can put the right people in the right places. New people, a breath of fresh air. Then Verstappen might just stay for another year, if he thinks: ‘Let’s first see what will happen next year.'”
Bleekemolen believes it was necessary to let Horner go. “It’s a necessary decision by Red Bull, to build for the future. I saw this bomb coming, that something like this was going to happen. Just not as quickly as now.”
