One Year After Horner: Is Red Bull Better or Worse Off?

One year after Christian Horner's exit, Red Bull is enduring a painful metamorphosis under Laurent Mekies. Fourth in the 2026 pecking order and struggling with systemic flaws that winning once masked, Milton Keynes faces its most uncertain chapter in two decades as Max Verstappen openly questions his future.

Why it matters:

Horner's dismissal forced Red Bull to confront hard truths: an outdated wind tunnel, over-reliance on individuals, and a culture resistant to change. The team is now navigating its first genuine rebuild while simultaneously becoming a full engine manufacturer.

The details:

• Power unit paradox: The in-house V6 leads the grid in raw power, but electrical weaknesses hurt at energy-hungry tracks. Topping the FIA ICE rankings has ironically locked Red Bull out of ADUO tokens, freezing hardware development.
• Personnel drain: Gianpiero Lambiase's move to McLaren and Paul Monaghan's shift to Cadillac have fueled brain-drain talk, though the team insists its depth remains intact.
• Driver tension: Isack Hadjar has broken the second-seat curse, yet Verstappen has publicly accused the team of ignoring his feedback, clashing with Mekies' claim that the Dutchman is the car's "most important sensor."
• Growing pains: Mekies is modernizing two decades of Horner-era practices, exposing redundancies while the factory awaits upgrades.

Between the lines:

The political turbulence that ousted Horner may not have settled. Verstappen's future remains a constant bargaining chip, and CEO Oliver Mintzlaff's tighter oversight suggests Mekies lacks the autonomy his predecessor enjoyed. Whether Horner caused the dysfunction or simply took the fall for it is still unanswered.

What's next:

Immediate recovery looks unlikely with Spa and Monza set to expose the power unit's electrical deficits. Mekies' real judgment will come in 2027, once infrastructure matures. But if Verstappen departs before then, Red Bull's reset risks becoming an existential crisis.