Christian Horner was paid £67million in severance after being sacked by Red Bull following a texting scandal with a colleague, additional uncovered documents show.
The Daily Mail’s Richard Eden revealed today that documents filed this week at Companies House from Red Bull Racing disclose that Horner, 52, banked £33.5million.
Now it has emerged that Horner – husband of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell – was paid a further £33.5m from the separate accounts of Red Bull Technology, taking his total pay-out to around £67m.
The accounts list a further salary renumeration of £9.029m and ‘company contributions to money purchase pension schemes’ at £10,000 to its highest-paid director. That takes his overall package to an eye-watering £76m.
Horner had been the longest reigning team principal in the sport, steering Red Bull for 20 years and winning eight drivers’ championships and six constructors’ titles, but was sacked in July 2025, a year after the scandal that engulfed him over texts he apparently sent to a female employee.
The payment is disclosed in the small print of Red Bull Racing’s latest accounts for last year and is reported as ‘compensation for loss of office’ in the directors’ remuneration section.
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 being made public in an explosive email sent to F1 figures before the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Christian Horner – Geri Halliwell’s husband – was paid £67million in severance by Red Bull
The team principal was axed after a texting scandal, though two investigations cleared him of impropriety
His wife Geri stood by him throughout the scandal. They live together in a £9.2m mansion near the Oxfordshire border with Northamptonshire.
Last month, it was revealed that the woman who accused him of coercive behaviour had been mysteriously released from her latest role in motor racing.
A source 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 her latest position was terminated after her new boss, with whom she worked closely, lost confidence in her ‘for a lack of discretion’.
The saga that unfolded surrounding Horner’s supposedly coercive behaviour was one of the biggest to hit F1 in recent years.
Seventy-nine screenshots of WhatsApp chats between Horner and the female then colleague were leaked in an explosive email sent to F1 figures ahead of the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.
The file allegedly containing texts and images was leaked to almost 200 people involved in the sport, including owners Liberty Media, team principals and the media.
Horner oversaw eight drivers’ titles at Red Bull, including four in a row with Max Verstappen
The poignant moment former Red Bull team principal Horner broke the news of his sacking to his Spice Girl wife
Horner had been at the top of Red Bull since its inception in 2005, and led them in two phases to world championship success through 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.
