BUDAPEST: Formula One is a healthier place after the firing of Christian Horner as Red Bull team boss, McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said on Sunday (Aug 3).
Speaking to reporters after talks with Horner’s successor Laurent Mekies at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the American welcomed the Frenchman’s appointment and said his predecessor had crossed a line.
“I just left having a chat with Laurent, I’m happy he’s in the role he’s in,” he said. “I like Laurent, and I think that’ll be healthy, and maybe we can get back to focusing on competition on the track.
“There’s always going to be some political aspects to the sport, I think it’s going to be healthier with Laurent,” he added.
“I’m a fan of Laurent, I’ve known him for a long time and I think it’ll be good to go racing against Laurent.”
Brown and Horner were not friends, to put it mildly, and clashed frequently – with the former accusing Red Bull of cheating in 2022 when the team were found to be in breach of the 2021 cost cap.
The pair raced in British Formula Three and renewed their rivalry as bosses, trading barbs in the media with Horner a “pantomime villain” for audiences of the Netflix series Drive to Survive.
McLaren dethroned Red Bull as constructors’ champions last year – although Max Verstappen won the drivers’ crown for Horner’s team for the fourth time in a row – and have been dominant this season.
Brown said the Milton Keynes-based team, who dismissed Horner on Jul 9, had not seemed to be a healthy environment.
Horner, who last year faced allegations of misconduct made by a female employee which he denied and was cleared of after an investigation, has not commented publicly on the reasons for his departure.
Brown looked forward to racing Red Bull in the same way McLaren enjoyed competing against Ferrari and Mercedes – hard on track but celebrating in a more collegiate spirit for the good of the sport.
“From a fan’s point of view, the drama of the villain stuff I think works, but I also think the celebratory ‘fight it out on track but then kind of photobomb each other’ … I think that’s a more fun way to go racing,” he said.
Brown said the rivalry with Red Bull had gone too far, with Horner’s accusations about “flexi-wing” breaches and other technical matters.
“When you start getting into frivolous allegations, I think that’s just going too far, and I think if I look up and down pit lane now, I see us fighting each other hard politically but there being a line that’s not crossed,” he said.
“I think that line got crossed before … so I think that we’ll see a little bit of a change for the better.”