Helmut Marko: Verstappen Would Have Won 2025 Title if Horner Was Dismissed Earlier
In a candid interview, former Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko claims Max Verstappen would have won the 2025 F1 title if the team had dismissed Christian Horner earlier. Marko alleges Horner engaged in "dirty games" and a power grab that destabilized the team, directly harming its performance until his mid-season sacking.
Helmut Marko believes Max Verstappen would have secured his fifth consecutive Formula 1 world title in 2025 if Red Bull had acted sooner to remove Christian Horner from his position as team principal. The Austrian advisor, who recently left the team himself, claims that internal power struggles and "dirty games" orchestrated by Horner ultimately cost the team and its star driver the championship.
Why it matters:
Marko's explosive comments provide a rare, unfiltered look into the intense political warfare that reportedly consumed Red Bull following the death of founder Dietrich Mateschitz. His assertion that on-track performance suffered directly due to this instability challenges the public narrative and suggests the team's late-season resurgence under new leadership came too late to salvage the title.
The details:
- Marko recounts that Horner began maneuvering for control alongside Thai co-owner Chalerm Yoovidhya even before Mateschitz's death in 2022, marking the start of the internal rift.
- He alleges Horner's camp was responsible for fabricating damaging stories, including the notorious claim about Sergio Perez's focus and false reports about engine development delays aimed at getting Marko suspended.
- The decision to finally dismiss Horner in July 2025 was described by Marko as a necessary move to stop the performance decline, not a personal victory.
- Verstappen, under new team principal Laurent Mekies, mounted a remarkable comeback after the summer break but ultimately fell just two points short of McLaren's Lando Norris.
Between the lines:
Marko's narrative paints Horner as a central figure in a prolonged campaign for control, one that diverted energy and focus from the team's core mission: winning races. His claim that "more and more often, we were able to prove that Horner lied" indicates a breakdown of trust that became untenable. The timing of the power shift—mid-season—proved decisive, with Marko convinced an earlier resolution would have given the technical team the stability needed to develop a title-winning car from the start.
What's next:
With both Horner and Marko now departed, Red Bull's future rests in the hands of Laurent Mekies and a new leadership structure. The team must prove it can regain its dominant form without the two figures who built its modern empire. For Verstappen, the 2026 season becomes a critical test of whether the team can provide him with a car capable of reclaiming the championship he narrowly lost.