Horner, the £52m pay-off, and what next for ex-Red Bull boss?

Christian Horner formally leaves Red Bull a very rich man with unsated ambitions in Formula 1.

The 51-year-old’s separation from the team that made him one of the most successful in the sport was made public on Monday.

Red Bull did not provide any information regarding the settlement terms, but a source close to the team has informed BBC Sport that Horner obtained a pay-off worth 60 million euros (£52 million).

The move frees Horner up to return to F1 in the future – if he can find a project that is willing to take him on board.

Different figures have been published for Horner’s settlement.

The source of the figure of 60 million euros is unknown to BBC Sport. The Daily Mail reports that it is worth 92 million euros ($80 million), whereas The Race, a motorsport website, claims that it is worth $100 million ($74 million).

Ultimately, no-one other than Red Bull and Horner and their respective lawyers can be absolutely sure without seeing the documentation, to which they will not be privy. Additionally, more details are frequently released as time goes on.

Horner’s contract, which allegedly extended to the end of 2030, is said to have been 12 million euros ($10 million). He was sacked as team principal on 9 July this year.

Therefore, a 60 million euro settlement essentially equates to the payment of his contract’s final five years.

Although it may seem strange to be fired and then given his full salary, it is not unusual in sports.

Football managers who are dismissed for poor results, for example, regularly receive large payouts, such as former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag last year.

In a negotiation, all of these scenarios end.

In this instance, Horner and his attorneys would likely argue that he should have received compensation in addition to his salary, starting with a sizable number.

Red Bull would argue the sacking was justified, and therefore that if there was to be a settlement figure, it should be considerably lower. Regardless of how the relationship ended, there may have been a desire to reward him for the success with which he led the team.

Finally, all parties are able to reach a deal that makes sense.

But the High Pay Centre, a UK think-tank that analyses issues relating to top incomes, corporate governance and business performance, says this level of payout “would be considered extraordinarily large by the standards of even the biggest companies in Europe”.

The amount “would raise questions in the corporate world,” it goes on to say.

The majority of CEO incentive payments are made in shares that they have held for a number of years, in case there is evidence of misconduct or when their decisions turn out to be less than expected, it says.

“Paying £50m cash to one individual in a lump sum is a very casual way to spend an enormous sum of money”.

If Horner had worked as the CEO of a FTSE 100 company, his salary would have been in the top ten in the UK.

However, Austrian-based Red Bull is a private company. Comparing with similar situations in the US, Horner’s payout would still be high, but by no means the highest.

Stephane Bancel, the CEO of US drug Moderna, received a $ 926 million exit pay in 2019.

Although there is a lot of money in the sport, outside of Formula One, the numbers may appear disproportionately high.

Max Verstappen, a Red Bull driver, is reportedly making 75 million euros (£65 million) as his base salary. With bonuses and endorsements, the four-time champion is said to earn well over 100m euros (£87m) a year.

And for a business the size and wealth of Red Bull, which had revenues of 11.2 billion euros (£9.8 billion) in 2024, this amount of money is largely unimportant.

It has been two and a half months since Red Bull first learned of Horner’s dismissal and they have now gotten rid of an executive in whom they no longer had confidence. This means that they can now move forward with the investigation.

Horner was already a rich man, and is now even richer. However, both positively and negatively, his reputation will always be a part of this tale.

At the age of 31, 2005, he was given the task of starting an F1 team by the late Red Bull co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz.

When Red Bull entered F1, they were considered by rivals a bit of a joke – viewed as a party team that played loud music and not to be taken seriously.

But all of that soon changed, as soon as Horner hired Adrian Newey as technical director in 2006. Following his success with Williams and McLaren, Newey was already regarded with reverence. He is even more so now.

A monolith that won eight drivers’ championships, six constructors’ titles, and 124 grands prix was created by Horner and the man who is regarded by many as the greatest F1 designer in history.

One of the most effective team managers in history will be remembered as Horner.

But he is also the man who was sacked by Red Bull after, essentially, getting too big for his boots in the eyes of his employers, and presiding over an extraordinary 18-month period of decline.

By manipulating to his own advantage even before their patriarch died of cancer in October 2022, Horner upset the Mateschitz family, who owns 49% of Red Bull.

After Mateschitz’s passing, Horner and Helmut Marko, the Austrian ex-racing driver who was Mateschitz’s right-hand man, began to battle internally at Red Bull.

The power struggle intensified after it became public knowledge in February 2024 that a female employee had accused Horner of sexual harassment and coercive, controlling behaviour.

Verstappen ultimately felt the need to step in to support Marko, who continues to play for the team.

The allegations have always been refuted by Horner, and they were fired in 2024 following two internal investigations.

Horner served as the team’s leader after Newey’s headhunt, but he also held the position of team manager after losing him.

Newey resigned in April 2024, and the allegations by the female employee were a central part of his reasoning, along with his feeling that his contribution was being undervalued by some in the team, including Horner.

Three months later, Jonathan Wheatley, a long-time sports director, passed away as well.

Red Bull’s competitiveness had dropped by that point.

Verstappen took dominant championship wins in 2022 and 2023 to add to the maiden title he won controversially at Abu Dhabi in 2021.

However, Red Bull’s form dropped following a successful 2024 campaign. A revitalized McLaren presented them with a new challenge. But this decline also coincided with Newey’s departure – and was directly linked to it, according to former Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, who was sacked at the end of 2024.

Verstappen held on to retain the title until 2024, despite only claiming two of his final 14 starts. However, that slump persisted into the current season. Verstappen won just twice between the start of 2025 and Horner’s dismissal.

Verstappen’s future was uncertain until he confirmed he would stick to his contract, something he had already made clear after Horner’s departure.

Which raises a legitimate query: Given how Red Bull’s competitiveness decreased following Newey’s resignation, how should Newey and Horner be responsible for Red Bull’s success over the past 20 years?

In the past two races in Italy and Azerbaijan, Red Bull have returned to form with two dominant Verstappen victories.

Verstappen praised the direction that new team principal Laurent Mekies has taken with the introduction of a new floor design.

We’ve had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the setup of the car, the Dutchman said in Monza. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in control. We didn’t fully comprehend what to do.

I believe that Laurent’s approach works really well because he asks the engineers the right questions, which are common sense questions.

The underlying implication there is hard to miss, especially in the context of the difficult relationship Horner had with Verstappen’s father, former F1 driver Jos Verstappen.

Horner has made it clear to senior figures inside F1 that he wants to return to the sport.

He doesn’t want any jobs at all, though. They assert that being a team principal on its own is insufficient. He wants to be a shareholder, and he wants ultimate authority. In essence, he wants Toto Wolff, his nemesis at Mercedes, to be the same.

Horner is now very wealthy, but he is hardly likely not wealthy enough to start his own team or purchase a majority stake in an existing one as a result of the agreement with Red Bull.

Not when F1 team valuations start these days at £1bn and go up from there – world champions McLaren were recently valued at £3.5bn following a change in shareholding.

Therefore, Horner would likely need to find an investor who wants to invest in him if he wants to own a stake in a team. And he wouldn’t have any control if he were anything other than a majority shareholder.

Horner has the sort of record in terms of on-track performance that could make him very appealing to a wealthy investor who wants to make a success of their F1 team.

However, he now has a lot of baggage after about 18 months.