Max Verstappen has revealed he speaks to former Red Bull Formula 1 CEO and Team Principal Christian Horner “almost every week”.
Horner had lead the Milton-Keynes-based squad to eight Drivers’ and six Constructors’ titles during his 20-year tenure at the team.
Four out of those titles came with Verstappen, between 2021 and 2024. But since then, Red Bull’s form had deteriorated, eventually leading to a falling out between Horner and the upper echelons of Red Bull’s management.
This culminated with the Briton’ sacking, as CEO and Team Principal, after the British GP, last year.
12 months on, with Horner still looking for a permanent way back into the paddock, he made a return cameo at Silverstone.
At the time of Horner’s departure, a lot of speculation was surrounding the role Verstappen, and his father Jos had had in orchestrating the Briton’s removal.
But the 28-year-old revealed something completely contrary to the speculative record.
“I speak to Christian almost every week,” he told media including Motorsport Week when asked if he had spoken to Horner in the paddock at Silverstone.
“I saw him on the camera walking around, but I haven’t had time to meet anyone to be honest. It’s been busy.”
When prodded if he had been discussing something in particular with Horner, Verstappen simply replied, “Like you do with your friends or people that you’ve known for a long time.”
Max Verstappen opens up on “painful” 12 months after Horner’s Red Bull F1 departure
Hot on the heels of Horner’s ousting, Red Bull GmbH promoted Laurent Mekies as the CEO and Team Principal of the main team, after a year of service leading Racing Bulls in 2024 for the Frenchman.
And immediately after his arrival, the team did see an uptick in performance.
Verstappen launched an audacious bid to reclaim his F1 title, with a 100+ points deficit to Lando Norris, after the Dutch GP, reduced to just two points after the chequered flag fell at the Abu Dhabi GP.
But Red Bull’s first season as a works outfit, with a RBPT-Ford power unit collaboration, has turned out to be a pretty underwhelming reality for the Dutchman.
Heading into the Belgian GP weekend, the race where Mekies succeeded Horner at Red Bull last year, Verstappen is a staggering 103 points off of championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli, in seventh.
Looking back on these 12 months, Verstappen conceded that it has been “painful” but erred on the side of caution before pinning the blame solely on Mekies.
“Everyone is trying their best. I’m not blaming one person or whatever. It’s just painful for everyone that this is happening,” Verstappen explained.
At Silverstone, Verstappen suffered his second rear-wing related incident, after his Q1 crash at Austria, DNFing out of P3 with only a handful of laps remaining.
“He [Mekies] came straight in my room, of course, to discuss the problems that we had in the race, to let me know what happened out there,” he concluded.
“But that’s normal. We always do that, good or bad.”
With Horner’s F1 return imminent, the last couple of race weekends has also exposed the fragility of the relationship between Verstappen and Red Bull, with the four-time F1 Champion reportedly on his way out at the end of 2026.
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