Helmut Marko has outlined what the atmosphere was like within Red Bull Racing following the death of Dietrich Mateschitz.
 |
| Photo: Mark Sutton |
Former Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko shed light on the internal power struggles that took place within the team after the death of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz. According to Marko, Christian Horner planned to increase his influence within the team by taking advantage of the instability in leadership after Mateschitz’s passing, with the support of the Thai side of Red Bull.
The tension reportedly peaked in 2024, when Horner was accused of inappropriate behavior toward one of his subordinates. This overall unrest was also said to have affected the car’s performance. As a result, Horner was dismissed ahead of this year’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone and replaced by Laurent Mekies.
“Together with Didi , I founded Red Bull Racing in 2005. We appointed Horner as team principal, and I was there as a supervisor. In principle, the power was always in Austria - we made the decisions.”
Dietrich Mateschitz passed away in October 2022, and ahead of that year’s Austrian Grand Prix, Red Bull held internal talks. “I remember a party earlier that year, ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, Didi was there but not in good health. Christian came up to me and said ‘he won’t make it to the end of the year’. From that moment on, Christian began cozying up to Chalerm Yoovidhya,”
“When Didi passed away later that year, Christian did everything he could to take control of the company with Yoovidhya’s support. On behalf of ‘Austria’, I did everything possible to prevent that.”
“We had to act because performance on track was falling behind. And if we had done it earlier, we would have got things back on track sooner and Max Verstappen would have been world champion this year. I am absolutely convinced of that.”
Helmut Marko himself announced his departure from Red Bull after this year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, ending nearly twenty years in his role.