Christian Horner has opened up on his ‘brutal’ Red Bull sacking and reflected on the support of wife Geri Halliwell during his ‘sex texts’ scandal. Horner, 52, was dismissed as CEO and Team Principal in July 2025 after 20 years in the role following an internal power struggle and a decline in form.He received a £67million severance payment, as Daily Mail Sport reported last week, with his exit coming a year after he was cleared of misconduct amid a texting scandal with a female employee. Horner has always denied the claims and was twice cleared of any impropriety in internal investigations at Red Bull, despite a tranche of supposedly intimate text exchanges between the pair – including messages and photographs – being made public in an explosive email sent to F1 figures before the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix. His sacking was unrelated to that, but speaking to The Guardianafter Max Verstappen made it back-to-back Grand Prix victories for Red Bull in Malaysia and Singapore over the past two weeks, Horner opened up on the pain it caused. ‘It felt particularly brutal and sad to finish in that manner,’ Horner said. ‘But I now have a reasonable relationship with Oliver Mintzlaff [the CEO of corporate projects at Red Bull]. He rang the other day and thanked me for all I’d done for the engine. Christian Horner has opened up on his ‘brutal’ sacking as Red Bull Team Principal last year Horner, pictured with wife Geri Halliwell, was embroiled in a sex texts scandal in 2024. He was cleared of any impropriety in two internal investigations and always denied the claims’It was very strange because that group became your extended family. So the tears on grown men’s faces was deeply moving.’Horner also revealed outside circumstances made his departure ‘very painful’, with his ex-wife Beverley Allen having passed away due to eye cancer just a week before.The 52-year-old shared a daughter, Olivia, with Beverley, and the pair had remained on good terms after splitting.He added: ‘I didn’t really process it (my departure) until a month later because, in the immediate aftermath, I focused on supporting my daughter through a hideous period.’In some ways though, the exit brought ‘relief’ to Horner, who is now married to former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell. ‘The last two years had been pretty tough but it was a particularly sensitive time, with the bereavement of my daughter’s mum the previous week,’ Horner said. ‘I had an 11-year-old child grieving her mother. Nothing was more important than that.’He also insisted his dismissal ‘was more focused on performance and the future’ after ‘coming through’ the 2024 allegations, but was full of praise for Halliwell’s role throughout that saga. ‘My wife was a pillar of support throughout and I just had to believe in the process,’ he added. Horner went on to express his pride at what he achieved at Red Bull over 20 years, with the constructor winning six championships during that time, while Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen both won four world titles in a row.But, things became more difficult after the death of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022.Mateschitz had always been a big supporter of Horner, but the 52-year-old then appeared to be regularly undermined by Helmut Marko, a key consultant for Red Bull, and Jos Verstappen, father of Max, amid a power struggle at the team. During Horner’s 20-year stint at Red Bull, the team enjoyed an incredible run of success Horner refused to criticise Jos, but expressed his disappointment at Marko for giving ‘no indication this was coming’ in relation to his dismissal. Horner’s arrival back in 2005 had also come after the shock dismissals of then-Red Bull Team Principal Tony Purnell and Managing Director David Pitchforth.When asked about the comparison with his own exit, the 52-year-old added: ‘History repeats itself. Not all teams act in that way. A lot of teams haven’t delivered over the years but you don’t see the same brutality as when I left. We had pole position at the previous race.’Horner insisted he remains excited by Formula One and would be attracted by a return to the sport, but insisted he would only come back ‘for the right opportunity with like-minded people that want to win’.