Former Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone slammed friend and confidante Christian Horner as an idiot, referring to the former Red Bull Racing boss' sexting scandal, which is probably one of the biggest factors that led to the demise of his role at the helm of the Milton Keynes squad.
The world of F1 has been in overdrive since Wednesday, when Red Bull gave Horner his walking papers after 20 years leading their F1 team.
While the exact reason for his firing has not been announced and while he insisted he wasn't given a reason, Horner's sexting scandal from 2024 has most probably caught up with him.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Ecclestone commented on his friend's situation; he said: "This business that he got involved with 18 months ago, he was just an idiot.
"He was a 50-year-old who thought he was 20, thought he was one of the boys," he added, before slamming the female Red Bull employee saying: “I often wonder, when these situations happen, why if the girl is so upset with the advances of someone, they don’t just say, ‘Oi you, stop it,’.”
However, the fact that a power struggle within Red Bull led to Horner's dismissal, especially since the passing of Dietrich Mateschitz—a huge supporter of Horner—cannot be ignored.
“It would probably have been better if they had said, ‘Come in, Christian, sit down,’” Ecclestone went on. “But the bottom line is that there are people there who thought he was getting away with things, that he was acting as if it was not the Red Bull Ring but the Christian Horner Ring.
When you are delivering, you get away with things
"He got away with so many things. And all the time you’re delivering, people close their eyes. But when you stop delivering, people start looking. One or two begin thinking, ‘Well, I could do a better job."
“Genuinely, it was a little bit of a muddle,” the 94-year-old added, elaborating on the power struggle within the energy drinks company. "Christian was the chief executive. If I’m the chief executive of a company, I want to be in charge.
"I want to do all the things that I think are right, and if I’m wrong, they can fire me; they can say, ‘Sorry, bye-bye, you made a few mistakes.’
"So, the minute Christian can’t be in that position to do what he thinks should be done, then for him it’s not easy. You can’t half-manage something. You need to have someone, I always say, to turn the lights on and off. You only really need one person.”
“I know it was suggested to him he should be a team manager and leave the commercial side to somebody else,” Ecclestone revealed. "His idea was, ‘I am the chief executive.’ [But] you get very few executives who can do everything, from engineering to public relations.
"He had been running the company the way he thought it should be run. For a long time, people were prepared to say, ‘OK, fair enough, he’s getting the job done.’ But as soon as you go off a little bit, people look and say, ‘Hang on.’
"Christian won a lot of championships. He was used to winning. So, it’s not easy when you’re not winning—and when you know that it’s not entirely your fault," Ecclestone concluded.
Ecclestone himself spent almost 40 years running Formula 1 before he was removed from his role by Liberty Media, who bought the rights for the sport in 2017.
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