Outgoing Red Bull chief Helmut Marko has sensationally claimed that Max Verstappen would have won this year’s world championship had Christian Horner left the constructor sooner.
The Dutch four-time world champion came within touching distance of a fifth title when the competition came down to the final Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi at the start of the month.
Verstappen ultimately won the final race of the season but finished in the points behind McLaren star Lando Norris, who claimed his first ever world title ahead of the Red Bull driver and his team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Former team principal Horner was dismissed from Red Bull in July, a year and a half after the Briton was embroiled in a storm of controversy over allegations that he had acted coercively towards a female employee.
Horner was investigated twice by two separated independent KCs in 2024 and cleared of any wrongdoing. He has also denied the allegations strenuously.
But in the ensuing media swirl – which included a cache of messages which claimed to have been sent by Horner to the employee leaked to key figures in the paddock – a power struggle emerged for ultimate control of the constructor between the warring Thai and Austrian factions.
Helmut Marko has shared his belief that Christian Horner’s July departure came too late for Max Verstappen to win the world championship
The Austrian former driver co-founded Red Bull Racing and appointed Horner as team principal in 2005
Marko, who co-founded Red Bull Racing with the late Dietrich Mateschitz, was heavily backed by his compatriots, and following his shock departure from the team last week, shared in an interview with De Limburger that he might have organised Horner’s exit along a different timeline.
‘It was nothing personal,’ the 82-year-old said of Horner’s sacking, adding that he had been keen ‘on behalf of “Austria”‘ to keep the Briton from seizing more control in the wake of Mateschitz’s death in 2023.
But Marko was adamant that he did not feel as if he had won a political ‘victory’ with Horner’s exit, continuing: ‘We had to do something because our on-track performance was lagging.
‘Had we done that sooner, by the way, we would have gotten things back on track faster this year, and Max would have become world champion. I’m absolutely convinced of that.
‘But those last years with Horner weren’t pleasant,’ he added. ‘Dirty tricks were played.
‘Do you remember me saying, back in the Sergio Perez era, that Mexicans are less focused than the Dutch or Germans? That was fabricated, perhaps even by them,’ Marko stressed, referencing a 2023 controversy which saw him handed a warning from FIA for a ‘xenophobic slur’ when he appeared to link Perez’s uneven form on the track to his ethnicity
‘Just like I supposedly said in 2024 that our engine development was behind schedule and that we would therefore lose Ford as our sponsor.
‘I never said that, but Horner wanted to use that to get me suspended. Because Max stepped up to the plate in Jeddah, it didn’t happen.’
Horner (pictured with his wife Geri Halliwell) has received an £80m compensation package
Verstappen was forced to content himself with a final win of the season in Abu Dhabi
Horner officially left Red Bull in September after agreeing an £80million package with the constructor, which will allow him to join a new team as early as next year.
Daily Mail Sport learned that weeks of negotiation concluded in a settlement reduced from the £110m he would have received if his contract, due to run until the end of 2030, had been paid out in full.
That, however, would have denied him as swift a return to the sport, a delay he wished to avoid.
Horner’s departure marks the end of a career at the Milton Keynes-based team that yielded eight drivers’ and six constructors’ world titles in two verses of success, first with Sebastian Vettel and then Verstappen.
He served as team principal from Red Bull’s inception on the Formula One grid in 2005 and was consistently flanked at tracks around the world by wife Geri Halliwell.
Marko’s exit represents another sea change at the constructor less than six months on, and one which will come as an even greater blow to Verstappen.
The 28-year-old saw Marko as one as his chief backers inside the team, and the pair shared a close bond.
Neither Verstappen nor his father Jos are believed to have been pleased with the decision, but are thought to have accepted it.