Christian Horner‘s former Crimson Bull colleagues have known as him out for ‘mendacity’ and ‘inflicting spicy rigidity’.
Earlier on Thursday, it was uncovered that Horner, 52, was paid a staggering £67million in severance after being sacked by Crimson Bull following a texting scandal.
The Daily Mail’s Richard Eden revealed that paperwork filed this week at Firms Home from Crimson Bull Racing disclose that Horner, 52, banked £33.5m. The husband of former Spice Woman Geri Halliwell was then paid an additional £33.5m from different Crimson Bull accounts.
The group’s celebrity driver Max Verstappen has opened up about what life was like within the group below ex-team principal Horner, whereas the cloud of scandal was hanging over them.
He stated: ‘To be trustworthy, I wish to see that folks get on. It isn’t good whenever you continuously have rigidity between folks.
‘After all, from the surface, folks prefer it, however truthfully between the groups, it’s higher when you will have only a pleasant relationship.
Max Verstappen stated their was ‘rigidity’ in Crimson Bull when Christian Horner was in cost
The group principal was axed after a texting scandal, although two investigations cleared him of impropriety
‘It isn’t as spicy, however I clearly fairly like how issues are going in the meanwhile, with everybody’s behaviour, let’s put it like that.
‘It’s much less anxious. We’re all main a anxious life and, when you possibly can take a little bit of stress out of it at occasions, it’s good.’
There have been extra scathing feedback from Helmut Marko, who was a colleague in his position as Crimson Bull adviser. Horner, in his upcoming autobiography Drive, claims Marko didn’t need Verstappen within the group.
Marko, 83, rubbished that allegation and pointed to former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher’s evaluation that Horner’s model of occasions was an ‘absolute lie’.
‘I am ignoring it as a lot as doable. Ralf Schumacher dealt with it very nicely,’ Marko advised Austrian outlet OE24.
On an episode of the Backstage Boxengasse podcast, Schumacher stated: ‘Marko approached Max when he was simply 11-and-a-half years previous. On the time, Jos stated it was nonetheless too early for him.
‘The physician, as him, was a bit miffed and stated: “Okay, when you do not need to, then so be it”.’
And Marko added: ‘I introduced Max into Formulation 1 and needed to stand my floor in opposition to Horner at his first race for Crimson Bull in Barcelona. He thought Max was too younger, too inexperienced.’
Horner had been the longest reigning group principal within the sport, steering Crimson Bull for 20 years and successful eight drivers’ championships and 6 constructors’ titles, however was sacked in July 2025, a yr after the scandal that engulfed him over texts he apparently despatched to a feminine worker.
Horner claims Helmut Marko (proper) didn’t need Max Verstappen at Crimson Bull, which the Austrian vehemently denies
The settlement fee is disclosed within the small print of Crimson Bull Racing’s newest accounts for final yr and is reported as ‘compensation for lack of workplace’ within the administrators’ remuneration part.
Horner has all the time denied the claims and was twice cleared of any impropriety in inner investigations at Crimson Bull, regardless of a tranche of supposedly intimate textual content exchanges between the pair being made public in an explosive e-mail despatched to F1 figures earlier than the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.
His spouse Geri stood by him all through the scandal. They dwell in a £9.2m mansion close to the Oxfordshire border with Northamptonshire.
Final month, it was revealed that the lady who accused him of coercive behaviour had been mysteriously launched from her newest position in motor racing.
A supply advised Each day Mail Sport that she was knowledgeable her providers have been now not required moments earlier than her scheduled flight to Budapest, a race gained by McLaren’s British world champion Lando Norris.
Her then employers, who can even not be named, stated: ‘We don’t touch upon personnel issues.’
It’s understood her newest place was terminated after her new boss, with whom she labored carefully, misplaced confidence in her ‘for an absence of discretion’.
The saga that unfolded surrounding Horner’s supposedly coercive behaviour was one of many greatest to hit F1 lately.
Seventy-nine screenshots of WhatsApp chats between Horner and the feminine then colleague have been leaked in an explosive e-mail despatched to F1 figures forward of the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.
The file allegedly containing texts and pictures was leaked to virtually 200 folks concerned within the sport, together with house owners Liberty Media, group principals and the media.
Horner had been on the prime of Crimson Bull since its inception in 2005, and led them in two phases to world championship success by Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.
There have been rising rumours of the 52-year-old probably returning to the grid. He lately advised The Occasions that Ferrari are his ‘dream’ group to hitch and the one one he would contemplate signing up for with out an fairness stake.
‘Would I contemplate Ferrari? I imply, Ferrari is the most important model in Formulation 1. It is the dream. And arguably it is the sleeping large of Formulation 1,’ he stated.
‘I have been a employed hand. I did 21 years sitting on the pit wall. I do not want to return to that.
‘At this stage in my life, there’s just one group for which I might settle for non-participation in possession [Ferrari].’
Per week in the past Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion, backed his beleaguered group principal Fred Vasseur because the ‘proper man’ to guide Ferrari amid hypothesis that Horner may take over.
Hamilton didn’t elaborate on what adjustments he needed to see however his feedback have been hardly an awesome vote of confidence within the organisation he joined final season looking for his eighth world title.
However Horner’s hopes of a return took a blow when Ferrari publicly backed present group principal Fred Vasseur.
Ferrari’s chief communications officer Maria Conti led the dialog, saying to a bunch of some 15 reporters: ‘Ferrari need to finish hypothesis over the management of the group.
Horner oversaw eight drivers’ titles at Crimson Bull, together with 4 in a row with Max Verstappen
‘I’m formally saying that Ferrari has made its selections and has full confidence in Fred Vasseur and his group. Nothing has modified. In order that’s it.’
It stays the case that Vasseur has didn’t ship the outcomes chairman John Elkann would have wished for, by no means getting near a world championship regardless of paying Lewis Hamilton £80million-a-year to race for them.
Vasseur can also be broadly condemned inside the organisation for failing to be taught quite a lot of phrases of Italian, as an alternative talking in English, or his native French, since taking on as Scuderia boss in 2023.
As Each day Mail Sport revealed in September, the 58-year-old can also be believed to have well being issues – regarding his coronary heart and the stress of the job. Moreover, his elevation to such a senior standing within the sport stays scarcely plausible given his limp years as Alfa Romeo boss, the place he gained precisely nothing. They have been behind the sector yr after yr.
