Christian Horner and Helmut Marko’s relationship rapidly deteriorated towards the end of their time at Red Bull, especially when it came to power within the team.

The duo spent 20 years at Red Bull, guiding them to eight drivers’ titles and six constructors’ titles. Marko oversaw the junior team, while Horner served as team principal, but the two soon got involved in intense friction behind the scenes.

Following the passing of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, Horner was accused of seizing too much power within the team. He was eventually sacked midway through 2025, with Marko leaving his post at the end of the season.

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Helmut Marko was ‘very uncomfortable’ with Christian Horner hiring Laurent Mekies due to the increasing UK power

In the midst of the power struggle, Horner was in the process of setting up Red Bull Powertrains. He was also tasked with overseeing the recruitment of the management team of their second team, then known as AlphaTauri.

Horner brought in Peter Bayer from the FIA and Laurent Mekies from Ferrari. The latter went on to become the Faenza outfit’s team principal, now known as Racing Bulls, and later replaced Horner as Red Bull boss in 2025.

But speaking on The F1 Show, Horner claims that Marko was ‘very uncomfortable’ with this, as he did not like the increasing power from the UK at Red Bull and how the power from Austria was starting to dwindle.

Horner said: “After Dietrich died, his role, which had been as an advisor essentially to Dietrich, was no longer there. So that created an uncertainty and an uneasiness, I think more for Helmut than anybody.

“What was his function? What was his role? And obviously during that period of time, they’d empowered me with recruiting the leadership team at AlphaTauri to become Racing Bulls.

“Franz Tost had retired, so I recruited Laurent Mekies from Ferrari. I negotiated with Fred his exit. I brought in Peter Bayer, who was ex-FIA. And Helmut was very uncomfortable about that, because he thought, again, it was too much power coming into the UK.

“But for me, it made complete sense where you had a sister team that was based, or his design team was based in the UK, for you to, where the regulations permitted, to collaborate as much as you could.”

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The relationship between the two is non-existent today. Marko called out Horner over his new book, Drive, calling it ‘a collection of untruths’.

The mood around Red Bull did improve following Horner’s sacking, but the new boss did not exactly see eye-to-eye with the Austrian either. Mekies was ‘annoyed’ with Marko over how he told Isack Hadjar that he would be getting promoted to the senior team for 2026.