Ex-Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone has reacted to Red Bull’s sacking of Christian Horner, stating the suddenness of the departure has made it feel as if “he murdered somebody”.
Horner was fired unceremoniously by the team on Tuesday, mere days after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The 51-year-old gave an emotional speech to staff at its Milton Keynes base, saying that running the team for 20 years had been “the biggest privilege of his life“.
Ecclestone, who was head of F1’s commercial rights from 1987 until 2017, was shocked by the news, revealing that he had spoken to Horner just the day before.
“I spoke to him the day before and he didn’t know. Well, he might have known, but he didn’t tell me,” he told RacingNews365.
“It was a normal conversation. We were talking about Max [Verstappen]. Nothing to do with this, otherwise he would have told me.”
Horner ‘must have done something drastic’ to merit immediate firing
Ecclestone expressed surprise over the swiftness of the decision the team made to relieve Horner of his operational duties as Team Principal and CEO, intimating that his actions to trigger such a decision might have been bad enough to warrant it.
“All I know is the message the whole world has got, which is, he’s been fired, effective immediately,” he added.
“It’s the effective immediately I don’t understand. Why would they ask him to leave with immediate effect? It’s like he’s murdered somebody.
“You can understand, if you’re going to fire somebody, then you’d have a chat before and you’d come out with something like, ‘We’ve agreed to part company’, or something.
“But to come out and say, ‘You’re fired with immediate effect’, he must have done something a bit drastic for that to happen.
“Let’s assume they were unhappy with the results, which I can understand, that’s one thing, but to be fired immediately, that’s a different thing altogether.”
READ MORE – Red Bull document indicates potential detail behind Christian Horner dismissal
