Christian Horner at centre of new Helmut Marko theory after Verstappen heartbreak

 Max Verstappen would have beaten Lando Norris to the F1 2025 world championship had Red Bull sacked Christian Horner earlier in the season.

That is the claim of former Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko, who says the team “had to act” on Horner given the poor performance of the Red Bull RB21 in the first half of the year.

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Horner was sacked by Red Bull after more than 20 years in charge following July’s British Grand Prix, with Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies installed as his replacement as chief executive and team principal.

Mekies’ arrival coincided with an impressive turnaround by Red Bull in the second half of the season.

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Having been restricted to just two wins before the summer break, Verstappen proceeded to win six of the final nine races to apply pressure on Norris and McLaren.

Verstappen’s latest victory at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last weekend put him on eight for the season, one more than Norris and fellow title contender Oscar Piastri.

However, the Dutchman fell just two points short of the McLaren driver in the overall standings as Norris secured his maiden title.

Parent company Red Bull GmbH announced earlier this week that Marko is to leave his role as a senior advisor after more than two decades, following Horner out the exit door.

And the 82-year-old is “convinced” that Verstappen would have beaten Norris to the title had Horner been removed from his position sooner.

Asked if Horner’s dismissal felt like a personal victory to him, Marko told Dutch publication De Limburger: “No.

“We had to do something because performance on the track was lagging behind.

“Had we done that earlier, we would have got things up and running faster this year, and Max would have become world champion.

“I am absolutely convinced of that.”

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Marko’s comments came in an astonishing interview in which he accused Horner of “lying” during his tenure as Red Bull team principal. He did not offer examples of what he alleges to be lies from the former team boss.

The 82-year-old claimed that Horner started “cosying up to” Chalerm Yoovidhya, the Thai businessman and majority shareholder of Red Bull GmbH, in the months before Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz’s death in 2022.

Put to him that Horner’s dismissal marked the end of the so-called power struggle between the pair, Marko said: “That’s how it’s always been described in the media, but it wasn’t personal.

“Together with Didi [Mateschitz], I founded Red Bull Racing in 2005. We appointed Horner as team principal, and I was there as supervisor.

“In principle, the power always lay in Austria; we made the decisions.

“I remember a party in 2022 prior to the Austrian Grand Prix. Didi was there, but he wasn’t in good health.

“Christian came up to me and said: ‘He won’t make it to the end of the year.’

“From that moment on, he started cosying up to Chalerm Yoovidhya.

“When Didi passed away later that year, he did everything he could to take over with Yoovidhya’s support.

“On behalf of ‘Austria’, I did everything I could to prevent that from happening.”

Asked why Horner appeared to lose the support of Yoovidhya prior to his departure, Marko added: “We were increasingly able to prove that Horner was lying about all sorts of things.

“Once Chalerm realised this too, he had a change of heart.”

Marko went on to claim that “dirty games” were played behind the scenes at Red Bull during Horner’s tenure.

“Those last few years with Horner were not pleasant. There were dirty games being played,” he said.

“Do you remember me saying, during Sergio Perez’s time, that Mexicans are less focused than the Dutch or Germans? That was fabricated, perhaps by them.”

Marko was referring to an incident at the 2023 Italian Grand Prix, when he told Red Bull’s own television channel ServusTV: “We know that [Perez] has problems in qualifying, he has fluctuations in form, he is South American and he is just not as completely focused in his head as Max [Verstappen] is or as Sebastian [Vettel].”

It led to an apology from Marko being issued shortly afterwards: “I would like to apologise for my offensive remark and want to make it absolutely clear that I do not believe that we can generalise about the people from any country, any race, any ethnicity.

“I was trying to make a point that Checo [Perez] has fluctuated in his performance this year, but it was wrong to attribute this to his cultural heritage.”

Speaking about another alleged fabrication, Marko told De Limburger, “Just like I supposedly spread the rumour in 2024 that the development of our engine was behind schedule and that we would therefore lose Ford as our sponsor.

“I never said that, but Horner wanted to use it to suspend me. Because Max stepped in at Jeddah, it didn’t happen.”

Rumours of a possible suspension emerged in the early stages of the F1 2024 season, but were understood to be related to an investigation into the leaking of alleged information pertaining to a separate internal investigation into Horner’s behaviour, information which ended up being sent to members of the F1 media.

Marko acknowledged the possibility of action being taken against him when he spoke to the media ahead of the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but following peace talks, he was not suspended.

Verstappen spoke up about the rumours of Marko being suspended that weekend, insisting that the departure of the Red Bull advisor would be “not good for my situation as well.”

Horner appeared to lose the support of Yoovidhya before his departure in mid-2025, to which Marko put forward another allegation, albeit without any example: “We were increasingly able to prove that Horner was lying about all sorts of things.

“Once Chalerm realised this too, he had a change of heart.”

The interview with De Limburger also appeared to contradict the messaging from Red Bull GmbH that Marko had made his own decision to walk away from the F1 team, a decision Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff said he “deeply regretted.”

Marko labelled the press release from the parent company as “full of nonsense” and that he had to quickly call Max Verstappen to inform him of his departure, suggesting that the Austrian had little say over the timeline of his split or the confirmation from GmbH.