Marko Blames Horner for Costing Verstappen 2025 Title

Helmut Marko has claimed that Max Verstappen would have won the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship if Red Bull had dismissed Team Principal Christian Horner earlier in the season. The former Red Bull advisor, who recently left the team after 20 years, stated that delayed action on Horner's position directly cost the team and its star driver the title.

Why it matters:

Marko's public accusation is a stark and rare public airing of the internal power struggles that have plagued Red Bull Racing. It directly links the team's on-track performance decline to leadership instability, suggesting that personnel decisions in Milton Keynes had championship-deciding consequences. For Verstappen, it frames his 2025 season as one lost to politics as much as to pace.

The details:

• In an interview with De Telegraaf, Marko stated, "We had to do something because our on-track performance was lagging. Had we done that sooner... we would have gotten things back on track faster this year, and Max would have become World Champion. I'm absolutely convinced of that."
• Marko alleged that his final years working with Horner were fraught with "dirty tricks," including fabricating quotes attributed to him to damage his standing within the team.
• He cited two specific examples of fabricated statements:
  • A racist remark about Sergio Perez's Mexican heritage affecting focus, which Marko claims he never said.
  • A false claim in 2024 that Red Bull's engine development was behind schedule, which Horner allegedly tried to use as grounds to have Marko suspended—a move only prevented by Verstappen's intervention.
• Marko characterized Horner as having "power-hogging tendencies" that were pivotal in the incidents leading to his eventual dismissal.

The big picture:

This interview confirms the depth of the rift between Red Bull's old guard, represented by Marko, and its long-standing team principal. Horner's mid-season exit was the culmination of months of reported tension, internal investigations, and performance struggles. Marko's departure soon after signals a definitive end of an era for the team that dominated the early years of the sport's current regulatory cycle. The comments suggest Verstappen's loyalty to Marko played a key role in the internal dynamics, even preventing disciplinary action against the advisor.

What's next:

With both Marko and Horner gone, Red Bull enters a new chapter focused on rebuilding a unified technical and leadership structure to support Verstappen's championship ambitions. The team's performance in the 2026 season, under new regulations, will be the ultimate test of whether removing the reported source of internal conflict can restore its competitive edge. For Marko, his blunt assessment closes his Red Bull tenure but ensures the narrative around the team's turbulent 2025 season will be defined by this internal conflict.