Little more than a year on from Christian Horner leaving his £12million-a-season job as team principal of Red Bull, his accuser of coercive behaviour has been mysteriously released from her latest role in motor racing.Daily Mail Sport can reveal that the woman executive involved, whose identity cannot be disclosed for legal reasons, parted company from her employers ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix last month.A source has told Daily Mail Sport that she was informed her services were no longer required moments before her scheduled flight to Budapest, a race won by McLaren’s British world champion Lando Norris.Her then employers, who can also not be named, said: ‘We do not comment on personnel matters.’It is understood that her latest position was terminated after her new boss, with whom she worked closely, lost confidence in her ‘for a lack of discretion’.Daily Mail Sport has tried to contact the woman in question for a response to the suggested reasons for the parting, which followed a period during which she did not attend races. Christian Horner with wife Geri Halliwell last year shortly before his departure from Red Bull Horner oversaw eight drivers’ titles at Red Bull, including four in a row with Max VerstappenIn one of Formula One’s most high-profile controversies, Horner – the husband of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell – was accused of controlling behaviour over the employee. He 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 being made public in an explosive email sent to F1 figures ahead of the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.Halliwell has resolutely and publicly stood by Horner throughout the turmoil, and they continue to split their time between their north London and Oxfordshire homes, along with their children Bluebell, Olivia and Montague.Horner lost his job following last year’s British Grand Prix in a power struggle within the Austrian-based team he led to eight drivers’ and six constructors’ titles in two phases over 20 years through Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.Horner received an £80million package on leaving. The woman who made her accusations remained at Red Bull for several months as the saga unfolded before receiving a payout of some £3million.She returned to motor racing in July last year in her then new position.Horner, who has been courted by Ferrari and Aston Martin, and linked to Alpine, is considering how he might get back on the grid wall in a position that best suits him, ideally, as a team owner rather than as an employee.FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, speaking on the day of the British Grand Prix in July, vouched that Horner would ‘definitely’ return to F1.Pressure’s now back on Norris… defending his title is NOT impossible It might be the last thing Lando Norris wants to hear but the pressure is coming back on him. It goes with the job – and, surely, he would not change it for the world.That is because an opportunity opens up before him to plant himself into the folklore of Formula One history, following his excellent win in the Netherlands on Sunday, as one of the few men who has retained his title. You can reel back through history to Alberto Ascari, and so you go on, and thus in recent times to Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen who have managed the feat.It will be tough from 89 points back from Mercedes’ wonderkid Kimi Antonelli but there is a chance, that glimmer, with almost half the season to run, a chance to make this his magnum opus.Otherwise, he is a one-hit wonder, which is hardly the worst accolade to wear, but one he should consider to be beneath him now. Lando Norris has momentum after winning at Zandvoort, his second win on the spinFigures like this can kill any remaining enthusiasm to read on. But, astonishingly, over the last six races, Norris has scored more extravagantly than any of his rivals. He has managed 101 points, George Russell 95 and so you reverse through the throng. Lewis Hamilton has managed 86 points and the championship leader Antonelli the same. Charles Leclerc has notched 80.These are daunting mathematics for Norris, who may be the coming man in a McLaren that is finding its feet after their recent upgrades (though these improvements are less assured to work in Monza at the next race).He is showing a maturity of performance after becoming a world champion, momentum gathering, and with his team-mate Oscar Piastri discarded as a challenger for now at least. Norris’s world championship success last year has overcome that mental hurdle, it seems. This is a massive leap for him.I spoke by WhatsApp on his flight from America – where the latest Indy race was held in Washington DC – to Zak Brown, Norris’s boss, who ‘hosted’ Donald Trump, whose idea that ‘spectacular’ was, held to celebrate 250 years since his country’s Independence.Brown ruminated on McLaren’s revival, after starting the year behind the Mercedes cars of Russell and Antonelli. I asked him about the perceived fragility of Norris, a jittery leader last year, who has been active on Instagram in a way that might seem distracting to the task in hand. ‘No,’ others in his team say; he is more focused than ever and intent on winning the title back, no stone unturned. McLaren boss Zak Brown says Norris is conducting himself as a world champion shouldHis level of communication to his engineers has been strong, on a level above last year, so I was told, not working longer into the night but by the intelligence he brings to the debate.Speaking to Daily Mail Sport, Brown said: ‘The conversation (over performance) we had was not with Lando.‘Lando is a world champion now and conducting himself on and off the track like the champion he is without question. He gets more impressive every time he goes out.‘He is driving brilliantly. Tough start to the season. We have a great team. Sports have highs and lows and you can’t win them all.‘We are back at the front but we need to keep pushing and we know how hard it is to stay at the front!’Yes, it is a developmental race with Mercedes, who were so strong at the start but they and we wonder whether under the current cost cap (£170million) they spent their money early and are running out of currency. Their boss Toto Wolff said as much on Sunday.That offers further belief to Norris, whose career-defining need it is to show his own strength and define his reputation for posterity as a multiple world champion.