Martin Brundle believes Christian Horner's decision to try and play down key departures from Red Bull was a factor behind his sacking.
Horner was dismissed as team principal and CEO of Red Bull on July 9th, after 20 years in charge, and has been replaced by Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies.
Since it crushed the F1 field in 2023 with 21 wins from 22 races, Red Bull has been hit with key departures, with chief technical officer Adrian Newey, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley, chief designer Rob Marshall, and strategy chief Will Courtenay all accepting roles elsewhere.
Courtenay actually remains with Red Bull after it refused permission for him to take up his new position with McLaren, with his contract to expire in 2026.
After those departures, and especially Newey's, Horner was keen to stress that Red Bull would be fine to carry on without the key figures, but car and race-team performance have slumped alarmingly.
As such, Brundle has explained how downplaying the departures was a factor in Horner's own.
"He's been a passenger as well since Bahrain last year when that news came out and the tail has been wagging the dog a little bit," Brundle observed on the Sky Sports F1 podcast, referring to the investigations by Red Bull GmbH into allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
"Obviously, Team Verstappen have been briefing certain journalists, and Christian came under more and more pressure.
"He'd lost key people like Adrian Newey, Rob Marshall, and Jonathan Wheatley, and his failing was convincing himself and trying to convince everybody else that they weren't really doing that much anymore, and it didn't matter.
"That he'd got a better crew behind them, but that wasn't correct, and it is not exactly like it has been a disaster and they're completing non-performing, but there were too many things working against him.
"He had a lot of support from [Red Bull's majority owner] Chalerm Yoovidhya, and eventually that faded away, and the inevitable happened."
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