Red Bull has announced that Christian Horner has departed his role at the helm, but could a team that’s long held an interest in him offer him a reprieve in Formula 1?
The bombshell news that Horner will no longer be on the Red Bull pit wall once the campaign resumes in Belgium coincides with ongoing rumours concerning Ferrari.
Ferrari lies second in the Constructors’ Championship, but the Italian marque remains without a single Grand Prix win and lags a crushing 238 points behind McLaren.
That inspired reports in the Italian media to mount in the build-up to last month’s Canadian Grand Prix that Ferrari is contemplating replacing incumbent Fred Vasseur.
That succeeded a claim multiple weeks prior that Ferrari’s senior bosses had been evaluating potential alternatives and even sounded out Horner’s interest in the role.
However, Horner, who had been in charge at Red Bull since 2005, was swift to dismiss such speculation when probed on whether he had engaged in talks with Ferrari.
“I mean, of course, it’s always flattering to be associated with other teams,” Horner told media including Motorsport Week at the Spanish Grand Prix.
“But my commitment 100 per cent is with Red Bull and always has been and certainly will be for the long term.
“There’s a bunch of speculation always in this business, people coming here, going there, whatever, and I think people in the team know exactly what the situation is.”
Will Ferrari make Horner approach?
But with Horner’s allegiance to Red Bull broken, will the man who has overseen 14 championship successes now be open to entertaining proposals to continue in F1?
Ferrari launching a renewed approach to obtain his services would come as no surprise, as the Maranello-based squad has tried on numerous occasions to prise him.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko even detailed once that Horner came close to departing the squad to succeed Mattia Binotto at Ferrari in late 2022 until he intervened.
“It took me another whole night to convince Horner to stay at Red Bull,” the Austrian revealed. “And it cost us millions more.”
In the circumstance where Ferrari did succeed in appointing Horner, the Briton has presented an insight into how he would go about restoring the side to the pinnacle.
“I think the biggest problem for Ferrari is that it’s a national team,” he addressed in 2023. “It needs to get back to being a race team.
“It’s an Italian institution and there’s probably too many people at the top end. Everybody has an input and has a say.
“From the outside looking in, one of our strengths is that we move quickly, we make decisions and we stick to them. And if we make the wrong decision, we change the decision.
“I think, for Ferrari, the newspapers have such an influence on what happens there. So it’s a lot of pressure being at Ferrari.”
READ MORE – Christian Horner sacked by Red Bull, Laurent Mekies named new CEO
Too much baggage!