I was there for Christian Horner's last Red Bull race, here’s what he told us

Unbeknown to the F1 media at the time, Christian Horner held his final debrief following Sunday’s British Grand Prix.

Horner, F1’s longest-serving team principal, was sacked with immediate effect by Red Bull on Wednesday, bringing to an end a 20-year spell with the Milton Keynes outfit.

Here are the main things he told media including Crash.net at Silverstone, and the issues he leaves behind at Red Bull for his successor Laurent Mekies…

What he said about Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen finished fifth after a spin in the wet, having qualified on pole. His future remains a topic for debate.

Horner said: “I though Max had a super start, was able to feel his way around those first few laps but it was very clear early on that Oscar had quite an advantage pace-wise. The safety car came out and that’s where the race started to unfold for us, unfortunately. Oscar obviously did what he did on the brakes on the run up to Stowe.

“It caught Max out as you're preparing to take the restart, put him out completely unaware as to what was going on. I thought it was a very good catch from him, but slotted back effectively in 10th place behind Carlos.

“And once we were in the pack in that dirty air, in those wet conditions on the downforce level that we were running, you could see just how hard it was for him. But then as the circuit started to dry out, you could see the car starting to find more and more pace and he was able to pick his way through.”

What he said about Yuki Tsunoda

Red Bull's newest driver Yuki Tsunoda has struggled in a car that is seemingly tailored towards Verstappen. He was 15th at Silverstone after a time penalty. Red Bull have a decision to make about their faith in Tsunoda.

“Yuki's race, unfortunately he picked up a 10 second penalty, which I thought was quite harsh. But it is what it is, because for me that was kind of a racing incident.

“His problems were the same as Max in the damp conditions and when you're running in dirty air, it makes it incredibly difficult. I think in normal dry conditions he would have scored points today, but we didn't have a normal race.”

What he said on Red Bull’s positives

“Look, we focus on the positives. We’ve got pole position here. We've got performance on the car from the upgrade that we brought. We were able to balance it for qualifying at a track that's very heavily aero-dependent. We got unlucky with the weather today. It was worth a shot, but it didn't pay off. So we'll focus on the positives. We know where we need to improve to keep moving forward. We've outscored George Russell, so we are where we are.”

What he said about Red Bull upgrades

Asked if Red Bull will bring upgrades in the coming races, Horner replied: “Possibly. There’s still the last pieces of ’25 going through but obviously pretty much 90% of the focus now is on 2026.”

What he said about the Belgian Grand Prix

The F1 Belgian Grand Prix is the next round. It will be the first without Horner leading Red Bull.

He said: "At least at Spa this year we won't be taking any engine penalties, which will be the first time in quite a few years. It never rains [laughs]. So we'll see. Spa is a great track and I just feel that luck hasn't been with us the last couple of weeks. But that always evens itself out.”