The clearcut of the nigh on twenty year senior management structure at Red Bull Racing was complete just days after the 2025 Formula One season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Dr. Helmut Marko revealed he was leaving his role as special advisor to the team and the head of the Red Bull junior driving academy with immediate effect.
Whilst the Austrian claimed he had jumped rather than been pushed, the hasty nature of his exit suggests otherwise to some F1 observers. Marko claimed he would have quit on a high note had Verstappen completed the most remarkable F1 comeback of all time.
Marko stabbed in the back
Yet despite admitting he felt something had been lost in Abu Dhabi, the former Red Bull advisor failed to give a reasoned explanation as to why he was leaving even though Max had failed in his pursuit of a record fifth consecutive F1 drivers championship.
When Christian Horner was exited from the team, he kept his counsel over many of the skeletons in the Red Bull closet. Newey too refused to do anything but be thankful for his time in Milton Keynes, but Dr. Marko chose to use his exit as the platform for a rant.
First up he criticised the Red Bull press release describing there sentiment he wished to leave on a high as “nonsense.” He went on to suggest he may have ultimately been stabbed in the back by those who used him to discredit Christian Horner.
“Let’s just say that a lot has changed at the team in a short period of time. You think you know people well, but in the end that turns out not to be the case… No, I really won’t say more,” he told Dutch publication De Limburger.
Scurrilous Horner accusations
Prior to this he had been scathing over the Red Bull former boss Christian Horner, who he claimed had brazenly lied for some time and eventually been found out by the energy drinks majority shareholder and the rest of the Austrian based board.
“When Didi passed away later that year, Christian did everything he could to take control of the company with Yoovidhya’s [RB majority shareholder’s] support. On behalf of ‘Austria’, I did everything possible to prevent that,” Marko revealed. This clearly puts him in the frame for the revelations of the Red Bull investigation into what resulted as a spurious allegation.
Maybe those people he defended are the ones he remarked about, “You think you know people well, but in the end that turns out not to be the case.” Marko simply backed the wrong horse given Horner was secure as long as he had the support of Yoovidhya.
The rant continued as Helmut accused the former Red Bull boss of a brazen dirty tricks campaign and lying. “Those final years with Horner were not pleasant,” he added. “Dirty games were being played. Do you remember when it was claimed that I said Mexicans were less focused than Dutch or German people during Sergio Perez’s time? That was fabricated – possibly by them [Horner’s camp].”
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Marko blasted by F1 fans for lying
At 82 and with the world of technology radically changing around him, it appears the once esteemed Red Bull consultant is not up to speed with the power of the internet. Countless F1 fans online heavily criticised Marko for lying about this event, given it was captured on TV and he was reprimanded by the FIA over potential racism.
“Adds a lot to his credibility,” said one fan sarcastically. “Blatantly lying about not saying things freely available on video.” Another questioned Marko’s reasoning that Horner attempted to have him suspended, posting “What would Horner gain from suspending him? The same people that fired Horner fired him as well.”
The backlash was a relentless against the man who once wandered the paddock speaking his mind with no PR person to accompany him. Red Bull often only knew of what he had revealed after it was published.
The Austrian continued his revelations about Horner, suggesting he manipulated the media to put Helmut in a bad light. “The same goes for the claim that in 2024 – I [allegedly] spread the story that our engine development was behind schedule and that we would therefore lose Ford as a partner. I never said that, but Horner wanted to use it to have me suspended. Because of Max’s support in Jeddah, that didn’t happen.”
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Marko claimed Horner’s alleged lies were the reason for his final downfall. “More and more often, we were able to prove that Horner lied about all sorts of things. Once Chalerm [Yoovidhya] realised that too, he changed his mind.”
This neat explanation for why Horner suddenly lost his most powerful backer in the Red Bull parent company feels somewhat contrived, given it was with the help of Marko – as he admitted – he empowered the Austrians.
His final punch was landed again in Horner’s direction as he claimed had the Austrian’s dismissed the Red Bull boss earlier, the seasons result would have been different. “We had to act because performance on track was falling behind,” he said of Horner’s dismissal. “If we had done it earlier, we would have got things back on track sooner and would have been world champion this year. I am absolutely convinced of that.”
There are a number of obvious flaws in marks reasoning, the first being that the game changing Monza floor which turned Red Bull’s 2025 fortunes around was in production before Horner left the team. Further, there is an ebb and flow in F1 in terms of success, but across the last twelve seasons, Christian Horner was responsible for eight driver championships and six constructor titles.
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Only Toto Wolff in history has collected more with a total of fifteen – one ahead of Horner. Nobody dismisses their most successful managers due to a down tick in the team’s current performance. What Ferrari would have given for a boss like Horner, is immeasurable.
The final nonsense in Marko’s assessment that dismissing Horner would have seen Verstappen win a record fifth consecutive title was the fact that McLaren almost threw the championship away.
Disqualifications in Las Vegas saw Verstappen gifted 25 points by the papaya liveried team and their bizarre strategy call a week later in Qatar resulted in Max gaining a further 13 points on Lando Norris the championship leader.
Despite all this, Marko played his part in a remarkable journey from the ashes of the jaguar F1 project to the pinnacle of Formula One. Yet his final words on leaving the sport were couched in bitterness and in fact it was him to blatantly lied – and was found out by the fans.
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