McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes Christian Horner was bound to see the exit door with Red Bull’s Formula 1 situation “getting worse” in the last couple of years.
Horner was shockingly axed by the Milton Keynes-based squad earlier this month, with ex-Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies being named his replacement.
The 51-year-old had been instrumental in Red Bull’s multiple championship successes and had been at the helm since the team’s inception back in 2005.
That said, with the team’s dwindling performances since midway through last season and tension behind the scenes, the board decided to part ways with the Briton.
With Chalerm Yoovidhya, the son of Red Bull’s co-founder Chaleo Yoovidhya, giving up the family’s majority stake in Red Bull GmbH recently, Horner was operating on borrowed time.
Rival boss Brown, who hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with Horner, said that his sacking was only a matter of time.
“Maybe the timing, but not the result,” he told TSN when asked if he was caught out by Red Bull’s decision to fire Horner with immediate effect.
“There’s been a lot of drama there the last couple of years and it doesn’t seem like that drama has been calming down, maybe even been getting worse.
“So, I’m not surprised, anytime in the middle of the season.”
Brown lost on Horner’s F1 options
Ever since the news broke out that Horner had been relieved of his duties as Team Principal and CEO at Red Bull, rumours started flooding in about his next destination.
The Briton is being linked with a move to either Ferrari or Alpine, but Brown doesn’t have any insights to offer on Horner’s future.
“I think given his age and his history in motor racing, I’d be surprised if he didn’t show up somewhere in motor racing,” Brown added.
“But I don’t know his other interests, whether he wants to go run a football team or what have you. We’ll see.”
Instead, having sealed the Constructors’ Championship in 2024, the former American sponsorship mogul wants to focus on wrapping up both titles this year with McLaren.
“We’re head down on our championship. They’ve got Max [Verstappen] still knocking on the door, so we’ve got to pay attention to that,” he concluded.
READ MORE — The warning Christian Horner delivered to Red Bull prior to F1 departure
Brown is so underhanded, at some point karma will come back to bite him. I would like to hear him talk about how HE has not been fired by explaining how McLaren went from being a financially healthy company the day Ron Dennis was booted, to being so badly in debt in under two years of Brown joining that they had to sell the Technology Centre, Applied Technologies company, and their classic car collection (how many of these ended up in Brown’s personal garage and are being leased back to the company?) etc just to remain afloat. All the while McLaren strangely had the money to join Indy, Formula E, and Extreme E — which make NO money. There are so many elements of his part in McLaren post-2016 that just don’t add up, and anyone else in his position in any other team would have been fired in months to prevent further damage. After hundreds of millions/maybe billions in loans to keep the doors open over the years, 100% of the McLaren Group was then sold to Mumtalakat who probably bought shares at a fire sale price, and recently (quietly) sold the automotive division to an investment firm, and also a part of the F1 team. You don’t need to an astrophysicist to figure out that a company like VW will eventually scoop this company up after it’s been passed around from one investment firm to another for a while.
Fortunately for Brown, for the past two years, the other F1 teams have been using most of their resources for next year while McLaren clearly haven’t (or they are cheating), which is probably the only reason they started winning.