Christian Horner-Red Bull, separation official and final: record severance package
Although the farewell had been announced several weeks ago and had been made concrete with the arrival of Laurent Mekies at the Red Bull race wall, it was only on Monday that the official announcement of the final separation between the British-based Austrian racing team and former team principal Christian Horner arrived. The latter wanted to address a farewell message to the entity he worked for for 20’years.
“Leading the Red Bull Racing team has been an honor and a privilege–he said.
When we started in 2005, none of us could have imagined the journey ahead, the championships, the races, the people and the memories we would create. I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved as a team, breaking record after record and reaching milestones that no one would have believed possible-I will carry this with me forever”.
“My greatest satisfaction, however, has been to have personally assembled and led an extraordinary group of talented and determined people– he added–to see them grow as a subsidiary of an energy drink company and to take on, and beat, some of the world’s biggest automotive brands.
Horner then wished his successor Mekies and the drivers Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda well in their work, while also thanking the Red Bull management, starting with the Mateschitz family, and the fans that the entity that entered the grid in the 2005 season by taking over Jaguar has seen increase year by year.
The’dismissal of Horner will lead to a hefty severance package, according to sources cited by the international version of ‘Motorsport.com’: the figure has not been made public, but there is talk of a deal in excess of $70 million (about 60 million euros). That’s a record-breaking figure for the termination of a contract that was initially supposed to run until December 31, 2030.
