2025 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[f1isgood]

The team had slipped back in 2024 with the risks they had to take due to lack of wind tunnel time. Horner's text saga/internal war or not, the car development was hurt already. For Marko, it is just a convenient face saver.

The team sorted their issues out and that takes a lot of time - just see all around the paddock how well teams have done these regulations. Ferrari went to --- this year, McLaren were --- for 2 years straight and Mercedes haven't recovered from the zeropods.

Red Bull's technical team still managed to make a working car that won 8 races this year. Credit where due. It's not like Verstappen alone was magically winning. It took a good enough car that's close enough, good operational efficiency and of course Verstappen being the machine he is. Horner is responsible for this team. He will also have at least half responsibility for next year's car and full responsibility for RBPT.

Horner slipping is just a stupid argument. You can't keep winning but Red Bull did find a way every year of these regulations. 17, 21, 9 and 8 wins are pretty good given the resource limitation. That's the global picture.

[Badger]

Success isn't eternal. Horner was a great leader for a long time but by the end he started slipping, the results and his personal decision making reflected that. The calm focus that the team found towards the end of the season is exactly what they needed to get back to.

Horner was slipping?

Yes. He stopped recruiting top talent and began losing it instead. They went from the winningest car ever in 2023, to 3rd in the WCC in 2024, to being flat out uncompetitive for two thirds of 2025. That's a pretty bad fall off during an engine freeze IMO, and it would have looked much worse if not for Verstappen's miraculous driving. The scandal obviously had a big effect, it showed a lack of judgement. I don't think he would have been that sloppy and irresponsible earlier in his career. When you've been somewhere for a long time sometimes you start getting complacent and you take liberties that you wouldn't otherwise. At the same time as these personal and professional question marks were starting to pop up there was also the power struggle, he effectively tried to shut out RB Austria and consolidate power under himself with the support of Yoovidhya. That was a risky political move and he lost out.

People claiming Horner is some kind of victim are wide of the mark. He undermined himself. Personally, professionally, and politically within the team. We can still appreciate what he accomplished but it was time to move on for RB. I hope he comes back with another team but with the focus and discipline that he used to have.

[f1isgood]

I also think Horner getting the boot wasn't good for RedBull. I don't believe he was just a random guy that by coincidence ended up riding the success wave of the team. Clearly whatever he was doing, resonated well with this team in the background and they had the results to back it up. Had they had a competitive PU in the early turbo-hybrid era, this team would have been challenging for titles all the way through, which is remarkable to say the least. There's barely been any bad RedBull car since 2009.

The problem is that there were obviously some bad blood kind of sh*t going in the background in the last couple of years. High ranking individuals in the team ended up fighting with each other with regards to who gets the biggest piece of the pie after Dietrich death. Which is sad. In the end Horner kind of sealed his fate with the whole "cocoa puffs" fiasco, but I think that was just the catalyst that was used as an excuse to justify his departure. He had started to make enemies within before that.

Success isn't eternal. Horner was a great leader for a long time but by the end he started slipping, the results and his personal decision making reflected that. The calm focus that the team found towards the end of the season is exactly what they needed to get back to.

Horner was slipping? you don't think teams go through cycles? Red bull was adapting to the loss of Newey and Marshall; it takes time for the new guns to get to grips with their new roles and have the same decision making authority and conviction. Whilst also dealing with reduced ATR and the penalty that came with the overspend.

Marko somehow blamed Horner for the entire car performance, as if the same people Horner hired aren't responsible for the so called "comeback". You don't fire a guy whose been successful for 20 years just because of 1 years of slight underperformance, the Austrian side did well to convince all the casual followers of the sport that somehow Horner was responsible for the car performance and just replacing him with Mekies somehow solved everything.

It damning indictment of the technical team at Red bull if it took just Mekies to show them the light, a person who should be much less competent the 100s of PhD's and other senior staff there. If I was one of the senior technical staff at Red bull, I'd be pretty disappointed to see Mekies get all the credit.

Mekies hasn't achieved anything so far. He is likeable and an idealist. Whether he will be a winner, only time will tell. I already think Red Bull would have forced McLaren into more mistakes with Horner around. People like Horner were disliked because they were a pain in the ass for others. It's not like Brown wasn't losing his mind over Horner every week for the last couple of years and Toto is still coping about 2021.

[euv2]

Success isn't eternal. Horner was a great leader for a long time but by the end he started slipping, the results and his personal decision making reflected that. The calm focus that the team found towards the end of the season is exactly what they needed to get back to.

Horner was slipping?

Yes. He stopped recruiting top talent and began losing it instead. They went from the winningest car ever in 2023, to 3rd in the WCC in 2024, to being flat out uncompetitive for two thirds of 2025. That's a pretty bad fall off during an engine freeze IMO, and it would have looked much worse if not for Verstappen's miraculous driving. The scandal obviously had a big effect, it showed a lack of judgement. I don't think he would have been that sloppy and irresponsible earlier in his career. When you've been somewhere for a long time sometimes you start getting complacent and you take liberties that you wouldn't otherwise. At the same time as these personal and professional question marks were starting to pop up there was also the power struggle, he effectively tried to shut out RB Austria and consolidate power under himself with the support of Yoovidhya. That was a risky political move and he lost out.

People claiming Horner is some kind of victim are wide of the mark. He undermined himself. Personally, professionally, and politically within the team. We can still appreciate what he accomplished but it was time to move on for RB. I hope he comes back with another team but with the focus and discipline that he used to have.

Where do you think the top talent comes from? it's from teams like Red Bull, where younger engineers learn from experience and interacting with the best. When at the top everyone considers that you have the best talent, now it's same with MCL, the people there weren't rated highly 2 years ago, now Marshall and co. are the best. Only successful people are considered good, and considering Red Bull and MERC dominated for so long, there's limited no. of best. So, does Red Bull go out and resign Prodromou and Marshall from MCL? or let the person who's been successful for 20 years be the judge?

Newey and Marshall weren't going to get any younger, Horner had have planned for their succession, and he did so by giving long term contracts to Ben Waterhouse, Wache, Enrico Balbo. The same people responsible for the comeback. Let's not forget about the massive ATR deficit to MCL and the exposure of their floor designs for the world to see, didn't play a big part. And still, RBR were only really outdone by MCL, they were still clear of Mercedes and Ferrari.

[lio007]

I think the boos for CH at this years F1-75 event haven't done him a favor with RB top management (Mintzlaff) also there. A nightmare from a brand point of view. Maybe this was the final trigger for his end with the team.

[TeamKoolGreen]

I think the boos for CH at this years F1-75 event haven't done him a favor with RB top management (Mintzlaff) also there. A nightmare from a brand point of view. Maybe this was the final trigger for his end with the team.

Utter nonsense. Sportsmen get booed all the time usually because they are competitive.

Horner was booted because he tried a hostile takeover of the racing team. Marko said it himself. It is too bad that Horner lost.

Because Horner was trying to save it. Scott Mitchell is reporting that the team will now be run by a steering committee. In other words , long term , the teams toast. It's back to Jaguar days.

[FittingMechanics]

Horner would not have been sacked if the season was going well.

[Badger]

Where do you think the top talent comes from? it's from teams like Red Bull, where younger engineers learn from experience and interacting with the best. When at the top everyone considers that you have the best talent, now it's same with MCL, the people there weren't rated highly 2 years ago, now Marshall and co. are the best. Only successful people are considered good, and considering Red Bull and MERC dominated for so long, there's limited no. of best. So, does Red Bull go out and resign Prodromou and Marshall from MCL? or let the person who's been successful for 20 years be the judge?

Newey and Marshall weren't going to get any younger, Horner had have planned for their succession, and he did so by giving long term contracts to Ben Waterhouse, Wache, Enrico Balbo. The same people responsible for the comeback. Let's not forget about the massive ATR deficit to MCL and the exposure of their floor designs for the world to see, didn't play a big part. And still, RBR were only really outdone by MCL, they were still clear of Mercedes and Ferrari.

You're missing the wider picture by getting lost in minutiae. He did lose Newey, Marshall, and Wheatley in a short space of time, however you spin that it's not an endorsement of Horner. And it did coincide with a drop in results and a very damaging personal scandal. He also tried to effectively seize control of the entire F1 operation without consent from one of the two major shareholders of Red Bull GmbH. Do you not see how all of this aggregated to make him untenable? The last part alone would get anyone fired.

[PlatinumZealot]

Horner would not have been sacked if the season was going well.

Not true. They have had far shittier seasons. It was not about not winning. RedBull has never been about 100% winning, they are more about competing in style. Horner was simply sacked because of the aforementioned power struggle and his clandestine moves to gain more power after the death of the founder. The sexual innappropriatness case just made an even bigger gun to shoot him with. Horner simply lost the plot.

[Watto]

Where do you think the top talent comes from? it's from teams like Red Bull, where younger engineers learn from experience and interacting with the best. When at the top everyone considers that you have the best talent, now it's same with MCL, the people there weren't rated highly 2 years ago, now Marshall and co. are the best. Only successful people are considered good, and considering Red Bull and MERC dominated for so long, there's limited no. of best. So, does Red Bull go out and resign Prodromou and Marshall from MCL? or let the person who's been successful for 20 years be the judge?

Newey and Marshall weren't going to get any younger, Horner had have planned for their succession, and he did so by giving long term contracts to Ben Waterhouse, Wache, Enrico Balbo. The same people responsible for the comeback. Let's not forget about the massive ATR deficit to MCL and the exposure of their floor designs for the world to see, didn't play a big part. And still, RBR were only really outdone by MCL, they were still clear of Mercedes and Ferrari.

You're missing the wider picture by getting lost in minutiae. He did lose Newey, Marshall, and Wheatley in a short space of time, however you spin that it's not an endorsement of Horner. And it did coincide with a drop in results and a very damaging personal scandal. He also tried to effectively seize control of the entire F1 operation without consent from one of the two major shareholders of Red Bull GmbH. Do you not see how all of this aggregated to make him untenable? The last part alone would get anyone fired.

Tbh, I think nothing Horner and Marko both wanted control Marko was sacked for trying to sign Alex Palou and getting him to break his contract with McLaren without Red Bull GmbH's knowledge, that would make Horner or Red Bull GmbH's job very hard going rogue line that at the same times I. think that still of operation on how Red Bull has operated for years. Just neither of them would wrong Didi.

I think they were both against the sale to Porsche because they both knew they would lose control and have more oversight. I think Didi saw all that conflict coming.

I don't think Horners dismissal had any bearing on the turn around late this year more of than would have been in the pipeline when Horner was removed

[erikejw]

"There's barely been any bad RedBull car since 2009."

And that car still won 5 out of the 10 last races of the season.

It was born quite mediocre but they turned it around quickly.

Maybe the huge success through the years was one of the downfalls and internal political problems.

After 2023 they were too great and felt invincible so people started to focus on personal internal gains instead of working 100% as a team and the downward trajectory started to gain traction with politics and cracks here and there.

Maybe their success also became their downfall in some regard.

It's the end of an era and next year will be a new RB.

Let's see how they measure up.

[
quote=Emag post_id=1314892 time=1765803521 user_id=40020]
I also think Horner getting the boot wasn't good for RedBull. I don't believe he was just a random guy that by coincidence ended up riding the success wave of the team. Clearly whatever he was doing, resonated well with this team in the background and they had the results to back it up. Had they had a competitive PU in the early turbo-hybrid era, this team would have been challenging for titles all the way through, which is remarkable to say the least. There's barely been any bad RedBull car since 2009.

The problem is that there were obviously some bad blood kind of sh*t going in the background in the last couple of years. High ranking individuals in the team ended up fighting with each other with regards to who gets the biggest piece of the pie after Dietrich death. Which is sad. In the end Horner kind of sealed his fate with the whole "cocoa puffs" fiasco, but I think that was just the catalyst that was used as an excuse to justify his departure. He had started to make enemies within before that.
[/quote]

[erikejw]

Yes, it speaks volumes when Zak is eerily happy that Horner is gone and speak well about Mekies.

It tells me he doesn't see him as a threat at all.

F1 is a cutthroat competition with lots of politics involved. If you don't play that game then you'll most likely loose out.

Only time will tell.
Perhaps Mekies is a good choice after the turbulence.

Stefano Domenicali was similar to Mekies in that way, very likeable and fair, perhaps too much for that position.

It's after all a world class elite competition.

Didi appointed people that he trusted and gave them power to use their judgement without a heavy bureaucracy, within confines.

When he was gone that changed dramatically. If it was Horner that wanted to continue the old way with the majority owners backing him or if it was the then Austrian minority owners who wanted to take a strong grip of the operations and meddle is impossible to know from the outside.

The future results will tell if the new direction is what was needed. F1 is brutal that way.






[
quote=f1isgood post_id=1314918 time=1765818282 user_id=45634]

Success isn't eternal. Horner was a great leader for a long time but by the end he started slipping, the results and his personal decision making reflected that. The calm focus that the team found towards the end of the season is exactly what they needed to get back to.

Horner was slipping? you don't think teams go through cycles? Red bull was adapting to the loss of Newey and Marshall; it takes time for the new guns to get to grips with their new roles and have the same decision making authority and conviction. Whilst also dealing with reduced ATR and the penalty that came with the overspend.

Marko somehow blamed Horner for the entire car performance, as if the same people Horner hired aren't responsible for the so called "comeback". You don't fire a guy whose been successful for 20 years just because of 1 years of slight underperformance, the Austrian side did well to convince all the casual followers of the sport that somehow Horner was responsible for the car performance and just replacing him with Mekies somehow solved everything.

It damning indictment of the technical team at Red bull if it took just Mekies to show them the light, a person who should be much less competent the 100s of PhD's and other senior staff there. If I was one of the senior technical staff at Red bull, I'd be pretty disappointed to see Mekies get all the credit.

Mekies hasn't achieved anything so far. He is likeable and an idealist. Whether he will be a winner, only time will tell. I already think Red Bull would have forced McLaren into more mistakes with Horner around. People like Horner were disliked because they were a pain in the ass for others. It's not like Brown wasn't losing his mind over Horner every week for the last couple of years and Toto is still coping about 2021.
[/quote]

[kptaylor]

What about the indictment of Marko's abilities? The driver development/progression and driver choices he made are, in retrospect, pretty poor outside Max... Criticism goes both ways.

[Wouter]

Tbh, I think nothing Horner and Marko both wanted control Marko was sacked for trying to sign Alex Palou and getting him to break his contract with McLaren without Red Bull GmbH's knowledge

.

The Race
Aug 28, 2025
by Jack Benyon

The Red Bull Formula 1 team is not trying to sign freshly crowned four-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou, despite reports to the contrary earlier this week.

An article written by the Indy Star - a leader in IndyCar journalism covering the Indianapolis area where most of the teams are based and its biggest race takes place - cited sources indicating the Red Bull squad wanted Palou to slot into its driver line-up. Potentially even straight in at its top team alongside Max Verstappen from next year.

The Race understands this is categorically not the case and that Red Bull is not pursuing the Chip Ganassi Racing driver, with Palou and his team also addressing the rumours in recent days.

“There’s been nothing, nothing at all,” Palou said of contact from F1 teams to The Associated Press earlier this week.

“We have heard nothing from anyone.

“The only thing I’ve heard was it was a manager for some other driver in IndyCar who would like to have my seat, who said it to start something.”

[basti313]

What about the indictment of Marko's abilities? The driver development/progression and driver choices he made are, in retrospect, pretty poor outside Max... Criticism goes both ways.

I think this is a big misinterpretation of Marko. He was at every trackside meeting, every strategy meeting. Not to sit around and think about driver lineups, but because he was a moderator for how they approach the weekends.
This is to me also the biggest clash amongst them all as Horner and Marko could at some point not change the situation anymore.

For the drivers: To me it is still the biggest point about Sainz. Why did he not come back to RB? Was it Marko or Horner?

Yes, it speaks volumes when Zak is eerily happy that Horner is gone and speak well about Mekies.

It tells me he doesn't see him as a threat at all.

I would not interpret too much into this.
McLaren is playing strongly the Good boy - Bad boy game. They try so hard that they shoot themselves in the foot with it.
Now Horner and Verstappen were the perfect bad boy targets. Of course they played this like fiddles.

Now comes smiling Mekies: Of course they can not start a fight out of nowhere. That would make them the bad boy.
Be assured, once there is a crash, one bad word by Mekies...the party will start.

Only time will tell.
Perhaps Mekies is a good choice after the turbulence.

I think he might have changed the trackside issues:
In the past whenever they were running into correlation/setup issues Newey came to the track and solved the situation, changed the approach how they went into FP1. This happend more than once.
Already 2023 the problems startet and Newey was not happy how he could operate back then. This constant struggle on how they set up the car, this constant failure in FP1 and FP2 went on till Horner was sacked. Since then then the number of lost Fridays went down strongly. Now maybe it was Marko who now could operate freely or it was Mekies, implementing his RB strategies. Hope we find out in the future.