GrandPrix247 Brain Fade of the Year: Christian Horner

Back in February, Horner came under investigation for alleged inappropriate behavior towards a female colleague within the team as Red Bull Racing were gearing up to defend the titles they won in 2023 after utterly dominating that season.

While Horner denied the allegations and after being cleared by the internal investigation initially, soon members of the F1 media, team bosses, and others received an anonymous email with screenshots of WhatsApp conversations allegedly between the Red Bull boss and the female employee.

Horner was defiant and showed up for pre-season testing in Bahrain as if nothing happened with his wife, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, showing up by his side, putting on a united front.

The matter dragged on, and the employee, who was suspended, appealed the decision of Red Bull to keep Horner in his job but lost the appeal in August, and that was the end of it.

However, the scandal had some grave repercussions for Red Bull Racing as civil war erupted within the team, with Max Verstappen taking his time before coming out to defend his boss while his father Jos was on the attack, accusing the Briton of ripping the team apart.

There was also talk of a power struggle between Red Bull bigwigs in the aftermath of Dietrich Mateschitz's passing back in 2022, who was known to be a great supporter of Horner, while the new boss of the energy drinks company, Oliver Mintzlaff, was not.

But the Thai shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya was a huge Horner supporter, and in the end, the F1 racing boss was kept in his job.

But the ramifications of the sexting scandal kept unravelling as Adrian Newey announced his departure from the team, later joining Aston Martin while long-serving Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley also left to become team boss at Sauber/Audi.

That all coincided with Red Bull losing their way with the development of their RB20 since the Emilia Romagna Grand upgrade, which meant Verstappen was on the back foot fending off the attacks of McLaren's Lando Norris.

While Verstappen managed to defend his title with some masterful driving and by maximizing all the opportunities that came his way, Red Bull lost their constructors' crown with McLaren triumphing and Ferrari runners-up as the RB20 proved to be too much to handle for Sergio Perez, who was shown the door at the end of the season.

We will never really have a conclusive idea of what went down in the Horner scandal, but chances are that it was a combination of all the scenarios that were floating around as explanations of what happened.

But one cannot help but feel that Horner shouldn't have put himself in such a situation, as despite he was cleared in the end, the ordeal has left scars on Red Bull, who are now at risk of losing Verstappen as well, which would be a huge blow for the team, who now needs to recover, especially as the 2026 F1 season with the major regulations overhaul looms.

And as such, and for not acting as he should've, Horner gets this award: Brain Fade of the Year...