Christian Horner reveals major unhappiness during Max Verstappen dominance

Christian Horner has revealed that he was privately unhappy during Red Bull's period of utter dominance with Max Verstappen, despite the team sweeping all before it on track.

The former Red Bull team principal, who left the Milton Keynes-based squad in July 2025 after 20 years at the helm, opened up on the High Performance podcast about the toll the job took on him even as results flowed in his favour.

Horner was dismissed by Red Bull following a stretch of internal discord and leadership upheaval, with his exit formalised in a settlement reached in September 2025. 

But he has now gone public with how he really felt behind the scenes during the team's most successful years with Verstappen.

Asked why he felt relief at leaving Red Bull, Horner explained that the atmosphere around the team had shifted dramatically from when he first joined.

"I think, obviously, tension had grown, things had changed, and it just felt very, very different from when I came into the sport, into the team," Horner said. 

"And when I got in the car, and I left that meeting, I called Geri, my wife, explained what happened, and you just feel like the world's been almost taken off your shoulders."

"Incredibly sad, and as I drove back up the M40 home, I had a chance to reflect a little. But, if I'm really honest with myself, and if you spoke to my wife, there was a period in time when we were winning a huge amount, and she said, 'I've never seen you so unhappy.' 

"It's almost like you get to the top of the mountain, and you realise there's nothing there.

"It was that kind of feeling, and obviously a huge amount of pressure in a sport that is so visible as well."

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Christian Horner explains what caused unhappiness emotions

The period Horner refers to coincides with Red Bull's dominant 2023 campaign, when internal factions reportedly formed within the team following the October 2022 death of co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz. 

That power vacuum is said to have fuelled friction between different camps at Red Bull, even as the team swept to results on track.

Pressed on how he could feel so negative during such a triumphant stretch for the team, Horner pointed directly to the death of Mateschitz as the turning point.

"I think it's all relative, and it applies across so many different aspects of life," he said. "That if you're happy in yourself, if you're happy in your work, then everything's just easier."

"And there's been an awful lot of change, obviously within the team, within the overall business, and then different pressures are settling down as to what does the new world after the passing of the founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, look like? 

"And inevitably, it was always going to be different from that moment onwards. And rather than being able to focus on just the racing, suddenly your energy, your focus gets consumed into managing other elements and other relationships and politics, which inevitably happen within many different organisations."