Christian Horner received £67million in severance payments after Red Bull dismissed him following a texting scandal involving a colleague, newly uncovered documents reveal.
Documents filed at Companies House this week by Red Bull Racing show that Horner, 52, received £33.5million, as first reported by the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden.
A further £33.5million was paid to the husband of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell from the separate accounts of Red Bull Technology, bringing his total severance package to approximately £67million.
The accounts also record £9.029million in salary remuneration and £10,000 in company contributions to money purchase pension schemes for the highest-paid director. Including those sums, Horner’s overall package rises to around £76million.
Horner had been Formula One’s longest-serving team principal, guiding Red Bull for 20 years and overseeing eight drivers’ championships and six constructors’ titles. He was dismissed in July 2025, a year after a scandal involving messages he allegedly sent to a female employee.
The payment appears in the small print of Red Bull Racing’s latest accounts and is described in the directors’ remuneration section as compensation for loss of office.
Horner has consistently denied the allegations and was cleared of wrongdoing twice in Red Bull’s internal investigations. The findings came despite the publication of a tranche of purportedly intimate messages in an explosive email sent to figures across F1 before the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Christian Horner, husband of Geri Halliwell, received £67million in severance from Red Bull
The team principal was dismissed after a texting scandal, although two investigations cleared him of wrongdoing
Halliwell stood by her husband throughout the controversy. The couple live in a £9.2million mansion near the Oxfordshire border with Northamptonshire.
Last month, it emerged that the woman who accused Horner of coercive behaviour had been unexpectedly released from her latest job in motor racing.
A source told Daily Mail Sport that she was informed her services were no longer required moments before she was due to board a flight to Budapest, where McLaren’s British world champion Lando Norris went on to win the race.
Her former employers, who cannot be identified, said: ‘We do not comment on personnel matters.’
It is understood that she lost the position after her new boss, with whom she worked closely, lost confidence in her because of what was described as ‘a lack of discretion’.
The controversy surrounding the allegations of coercive behaviour against Horner became one of the biggest scandals to affect F1 in recent years.
Seventy-nine screenshots of WhatsApp exchanges between Horner and the female colleague were circulated in an explosive email sent to F1 figures before the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.
The file, which allegedly contained messages and images, was sent to almost 200 people involved in the sport, including Liberty Media owners, team principals and members of the media.
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Horner oversaw eight drivers’ titles at Red Bull, including four consecutive championships with Max Verstappen
The emotional moment former Red Bull team principal Horner told his Spice Girl wife that he had been sacked
Horner had led Red Bull since the team’s creation in 2005, guiding it to championship success in two dominant eras with Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.
There have been growing rumours of the 52-year-old potentially returning to the grid.
He recently told The Times that Ferrari are his ‘dream’ team to join and the only one he would consider signing up for without an equity stake.
‘Would I consider Ferrari? I mean, Ferrari is the biggest brand in Formula 1. It’s the dream. And arguably it’s the sleeping giant of Formula 1,’ he said.
‘I’ve been a hired hand. I did 21 years sitting on the pit wall. I don’t need to go back to that.
‘At this stage in my life, there’s only one team for which I would accept non-participation in ownership [Ferrari].’
A week ago Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion, backed his beleaguered team principal Fred Vasseur as the ‘right guy’ to lead Ferrari amid speculation that Horner might take over.
Hamilton did not elaborate on what changes he wanted to see but his comments were hardly an overwhelming vote of confidence in the organisation he joined last season in search of his eighth world title.
Lewis Hamilton appeared to make a cryptic demand that Ferrari change the team’s hierarchy
But Horner’s hopes of a return took a blow when Ferrari publicly backed current team principal Fred Vasseur.
Ferrari’s chief communications officer Maria Conti led the conversation, saying to a group of some 15 reporters: ‘Ferrari want to end speculation over the leadership of the team.
‘I am officially saying that Ferrari has made its choices and has full confidence in Fred Vasseur and his team. Nothing has changed. So that’s it.’
It remains the case that Vasseur has failed to deliver the results chairman John Elkann would have wished for, never getting close to a world championship despite paying Lewis Hamilton £80million-a-year to race for them.
Vasseur is also widely condemned within the organisation for failing to learn more than a few words of Italian, instead speaking in English, or his native French, since taking over as Scuderia boss in 2023.
As Daily Mail Sport revealed in September, the 58-year-old is also believed to have health problems – relating to his heart and the stress of the job. Furthermore, his elevation to such a senior status in the sport remains scarcely believable given his limp years as Alfa Romeo boss, where he won exactly nothing. They were at the back of the field year after year.