Surprise team named as Christian Horner's next job due to his wish for "a stake"

Alpine have been named as the team Christian Horner would be most likely to join following his sudden sacking from Red Bull.

Horner has been left jobless after his shock dismissal from Red Bull earlier this week after 20 years in the role of team principal at the Milton Keynes squad.

There is already huge speculation about where Horner could next end up in the F1 paddock following his Red Bull departure.

According to Sky Sports, Horner cannot return to work in F1 until January 2026 due to a period of gardening leave he must observe until the end of the year.

Horner was recently linked with a switch to Ferrari amid uncertainty over the future of team principal Fred Vasseur, but at the time he dismissed the possibility of moving to Maranello.

However, Martin Brundle thinks it is unlikely Horner will link up with Ferrari because he believes the 51-year-old Briton will want a stake in whichever teams he next joins.

“I think that Christian will be desperate to have a stake in a team going forward,” Brundle told the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

“Some ownership rather than being a hired hand. Obviously, he won’t be able to do that at Ferrari, as entertaining as that job might be.”

Alpine next for Horner? 

Fellow Sky Sports pundit and former F1 driver Karun Chandhok echoed Brundle’s view, and reckons Alpine would be a more likely landing spot for Horner.

"These rumours about Ferrari kept popping up over the last decade,” Chandhok said.

"I do think a combination of Christian and Adrian Newey to Ferrari was a much more attractive package for Ferrari. I could see him landing at Alpine more than I could see him landing at Ferrari now.

"I think Ferrari are going to try and build their own thing. And there's a lot of other factors coming in, at this stage of Christian's career and life does he want to uproot everything?

"From where he lives, the commute to Enstone is pretty much going to be the same as the commute to Milton Keynes, so I can see that being a more likely destination.

"He and Flavio are both very old friends of Bernie Ecclestone. Bernie brought Christian to F1 when Red Bull bought the team. He was instrumental in Christian getting that job back in 2005.

"Flavio doesn't want to be team principal. He doesn't want to run the team day to day. He's got Steve Nielsen there as the Managing Director but I can imagine there's a few wheels and cogs being turned in the background for Christian to at least have a role there."

Sky Sports F1’s pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz agreed with Chandhok, saying: "Alpine is another British-based team, Flavio is there, with a team that's like Red Bull.

"In fact, most of Enstone and Milton Keynes kind of joined in each other. A lot of people in Enstone are ex-Red Bull and vice versa. That would be a much easier place for Horner to go.

"I think the Ferrari option, tempting as it might have been, especially a few months ago, knowing what was going to happen today, he might have thought, 'oh, maybe I should have taken that'.

“But I think he already made his mind up not to do Ferrari. And if Alpine is an option, then that's a much better way to go.”

Kravitz also pointed out that Lewis Hamilton may not be keen on Horner joining Ferrari given their rivalry.

"There's been a lot of water under that particular relationship bridge between Lewis Hamilton and Christian Horner," Kravitz said.

"You never know, you've got to work with everybody in this business, but I'm not quite sure if Lewis, having been so vociferous and backing Fred Vasseur over the last month or so, would have been happy seeing Ferrari lose Vasseur and replace him with Christian Horner.

"They haven't exactly been constant dinner dates with each other, have they? I'm not sure that would work out and John Elkann [Ferrari chairman] might have reflect on that.

"Charles Leclerc doesn't have any history with Christian Horner, but Lewis does a bit. Maybe that is something to consider.”