Former Formula 1 driver and analyst Martin Brundle has commented on the dismissal of Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. The team of Max Verstappen announced on Wednesday morning that the 51-year-old Briton had been sacked. According to Brundle, the news was not a surprise, given Red Bull’s results in recent months. However, Horner’s departure also evokes emotions in Brundle.
“To be honest, I’m a bit sad about it. I consider Christian Horner a friend and he has done incredibly good work for Red Bull for twenty years,” Brundle said in an initial response to Sky Sports. The Briton particularly praises the transformation that Horner managed to achieve at the Austrian racing stable: “They have won countless races and multiple championships. Horner has turned a struggling Jaguar team into a gigantic operation in Milton Keynes, with many successes and a well-stocked trophy cabinet,” Brundle emphasized.
Red Bull took over the Jaguar team in 2005, and put the 31-year-old Horner at the helm. He was the youngest team boss in the sport at the time. Under his leadership, the team won eight world titles among the drivers and six among the constructors. Yet this successful collaboration comes to an abrupt end after twenty years. Brundle points to the internal tensions within the team as a catalyst for Horner’s departure. “With everything that’s going on – considering the problems within the team and the dissatisfaction within the Verstappen camp – it doesn’t come as a complete surprise. You could already sense in the paddock that things were not going well at Red Bull.”
