Christian Horner has been sacked as CEO and team principal of Red Bull Racing, the team announced Wednesday.

“We would like to thank Christian Horner for his exceptional work over the last 20 years,” Oliver Mintzlaff, Red Bull CEO of corporate projects and investments, said in a news release. “With his tireless commitment, experience, expertise and innovative thinking, he has been instrumental in establishing Red Bull Racing as one of the most successful and attractive teams in Formula 1. Thank you for everything, Christian, and you will forever remain an important part of our team history.”

The bombshell move comes at a tumultuous time for the Formula One team as it struggles to create a competitive car, sitting fourth in the constructors’ standings largely thanks to Max Verstappen’s performances this season.

“Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today (Wednesday, 9 July 2025) and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing,” a spokesperson from Red Bull said in the release.

From my first race win, to four world championships, we have shared incredible successes. Winning memorable races and breaking countless records. Thank you for everything, Christian! pic.twitter.com/au4XjMqhlH

— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) July 9, 2025

Mekies, who was the team principal of Racing Bulls, will immediately replace Horner as CEO, with racing director Alan Permane taking over as the team boss at the sister team.

“The last year and a half has been an absolute privilege to lead the team with Peter (Bayer, CEO of Racing Bulls). It has been an amazing adventure to contribute to the birth of Racing Bulls together with all our talented people,” Mekies said in a statement.

“The spirit of the whole team is incredible, and I strongly believe that this is just the beginning. Alan is the perfect man to take over now and continue our path. He knows the team inside out and has always been an important pillar of our early successes.”

Horner has led Red Bull since it joined the grid in 2005 and oversaw its successful eras, including Sebastian Vettel’s run of world championships in the 2010s and Verstappen’s four titles since 2021.

Under his leadership, the team secured 124 victories, 107 pole positions, 287 podium finishes, eight drivers’ world championships and six constructors’ titles (the last one being the dominant 2023 season). But this year, McLaren has dominated and neither the team nor Verstappen appear likely to battle for a title.

Horner already denied reports earlier this season about Ferrari reaching out to him to replace current team principal Fred Vasseur.

“It’s always flattering to be associated with other teams. But my commitment, 100 percent, is with Red Bull,” he said during the Spanish GP weekend, when asked about the matter. “It always has been and certainly will be for the long term.

“There’s a bunch of speculation — always in this business — people coming here, going there, whatever. I think people in the team know exactly what the situation is.”

The news comes at a time when rumors are also swirling about Verstappen’s racing future.

In recent weeks, the topic about whether the Dutchman would leave Red Bull for Mercedes before the end of his contract in 2028 has continued to arise. During the British Grand Prix weekend, George Russell, who is out of a contract at the end of this season, said: “The likelihood I’m not at Mercedes next year, I think, is exceptionally low.”

The last 18 months at Red Bull have been turbulent. Multiple senior figures have left the team in that span, such as Jonathan Wheatley to become Sauber’s team principal and Adrian Newey to Aston Martin. There’s been a downturn in performance as the team struggles with its car, so much so that Verstappen has wrestled with it — and been vocal about the issues. He’s only won two races this season, and then there’s the case of the underperforming second Red Bull seat, which has already seen one driver swap this year (from Liam Lawson to Yuki Tsunoda).

Newey and Horner were at Red Bull together for 19 years (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Red Bull GmbH, the F1 team’s parent company, confirmed in early February 2024 that an independent investigation into allegations of controlling and inappropriate behavior against Horner by a female employee had been launched and “an external specialist barrister” would handle the matter.

Horner was questioned by a King’s Counsel (KC) on Feb. 9, and the season launch took place several days later. On Feb. 28, Red Bull GmbH announced the investigation was completed, and the grievance was dismissed.

In early March 2024, the employee was suspended, and this was related to the findings from the independent investigation, a person briefed on the matter told The Athletic. That same month, she filed an appeal.

Last August, Red Bull confirmed that the employee’s appeal was “not upheld.” Horner has denied the allegations.

The shock dismissal

Analysis by Madeline Coleman

There’s been a lot of smoke surrounding Red Bull this season, though it looked as if Verstappen was the one in question rather than Horner. Despite what had transpired over the last two years, on and off track, the 51-year-old had support from Thai majority shareholder Thai Chalerm Yoovidhya.

The news of Horner’s dismissal comes as a shock considering F1 is only halfway through the season, but Red Bull’s performance has been poor this year, as it struggles to address the issues with the car. Horner’s last race was at the British Grand Prix, where Verstappen secured pole position after key set-up changes to make the car lower in downforce. But the Dutchman struggled in the wet conditions and finished fifth, 56.781 seconds off winner Lando Norris.

The speculation and scrutiny around the drivers’ situation also does not help matters. Beyond Verstappen’s situation and ongoing questions from the media around his future, he is the only driver performing. Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda struggled with the car, and the Japanese driver finished last (among those who didn’t DNF or DNS) for the second consecutive race weekend.

“The tire is just melting lap by lap, corner by corner,” Tsunoda said after the Austrian GP. “Whatever I do, it’s melting every lap, and I’m feeling less grip lap by lap. In that situation, it’s really hard to maintain the pace.”

(Top photo: Erwin Scheriau/APA/AFP via Getty Images)

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“The work stoppage involving District Council 33 and the City of Philadelphia is OVER,” Mayor Cherelle Parker announced on social media early Wednesday morning.

A marathon negotiation session Tuesday between the city and its blue collar workers’ union responsible for trash pick-up and other duties around the city has resulted in a tentative contract agreement.

DC33 President Greg Boulware was exhausted after the 12-hour negotiation session and said they did what they had to do.

“There’s a lot of factors involved in what was going on and we ultimately did what we thought was in the best interest of all of our membership,” Boulware said.

The deal appears to be a complete win for the city because it got just about everything Parker wanted with a 3% raise in each of the three years of the deal. It’s a deal the Parker administration is calling “historic.”

When adding in the 5% increase the city agreed to last year to extend DC33’s contract by one year, the increase for the union over Parker’s four-year term will total 14%. That’s still well below the 32% total pay increase the union was fighting for.

“Your union stood up and fought for you and we did the best we can with the circumstances we had in front of us,” Boulware said.

Those circumstances include workers expecting to miss a paycheck Thursday.

Union officials have told workers to return to the job pending a ratification vote.

Nine thousand members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 went on strike July 1. The strike has resulted in massive piles of trash piling up on city streets and around trash drop-off sites designated by the city.

The strike also resulted in changes to the city’s annual Fourth of July concert with headliner LL Cool J and city native Jazmine Sullivan both dropping out.

The loss of 27 campers and counsellors from Camp Mystic to the Texas Hill Country flood may serve, at a terrible cost, to expand its considerable reputation across Texas and beyond. Even as the floods claimed more lives along the valley – more than 100 confirmed dead and 160 people unaccounted for as of Tuesday – the loss of several “Mystic Girls” has dominated the headlines.

The camp, which offers two four-week terms and one two-week term over the summer, has been the go-to summer camp for daughters of Texans for nearly a century. It’s so popular that fathers have been known to call the registrar to get their daughters on the list from the delivery room.

The camp, which spans more than 700 acres, has been widely described as an all-girls Christian camp, lending an image of baptisms in the river, but the religious component may be overstated: the camp is known as one of dozens along the Guadalupe River that Texan families send their young to escape the brutal heat of the lowlands.

Now at least one-half of Camp Mystic, which was due to celebrate its centenary next year, lies in ruins, torn apart by raging floodwaters. The sound of song and girls playing has been replaced by the sound of chainsaws and heavy equipment as 19 state agencies and thousands of volunteers work to search and clear mounds of flood debris along the river, including the muddied personal items of the campers.

Five days after the flood, the task along the valley has become a search-and-recovery operation: no one has been rescued from the river alive since Friday. In addition to the lost girls, Camp Mystic’s director, Richard “Dick” Eastland, a fourth-generation owner of the camp, died while attempting to bring five girls to safety.

“It tugs at the heart of anyone in the world that see the pictures of those little faces,” said Claudia Sullivan, author of a book on the Camp Mystic experience, Heartfelt: A Memoir of Camp Mystic Inspirations. “To know that they were there, having the time of their life, that they were innocent, and then to be taken away in such a tragic event – it takes you to your knees.”

Most alumni contacted by the Guardian indicated they were too upset to discuss the camp, or its reputation, as Texas Monthly put it in a 2011 article, for serving “as a near-flawless training ground for archetypal Texas women”.

It has served generations of Texas women, often from well-to-do or politically connected Texas families, including the former first lady Laura Bush, who was a counsellor, and the daughters and granddaughters of Lyndon Johnson, former secretary of state James Baker, and Texas governors Price Daniel, Dan Moody and John Connally.

The camp may have been incorrectly characterized as a “Christian” camp. “That evokes the idea of church camp but that’s not the case,” said Sullivan. “It’s a private camp for girls that holds Christian values. When I was there we spent a lot of time talking about being kind to one another and having compassion, and there were people from other denominations and faiths.”

Camp Mystic is better understood, Sullivan added, as being in a place free from pressure.

“You’re in nature, in a beautiful setting, and really removed from the world”, said Sullivan. “It’s a place of joy and innocence – or was. My sense is that it will definitely be rebuilt, but it’s awfully early.”

The outpouring of grief and rush to support the community have been striking. A church memorial service was held on Monday in San Antonio for the “Mystic girls” who had been lost. Many dressed in the camp’s green and white, together in song and prayer.

It was not possible to get to the camp on Tuesday, a tailback of 2.5 hours extended across the 7 miles from Hunt, the nearest hamlet, to Camp Mystic. At the season’s peak in July and August, the camp hosted 750 girls aged between seven and 17 years old – that’s more than half of Hunt’s population of around 1,300.

At Ingram, a riverbank town that also lost dozens from RV camps and homes to the flood, emergency workers and volunteers were pitching in, in many cases in the hope of recovering people still lost, and many bodies likely hidden under large piles of river debris, shattered homes and mangled possessions.

John Sheffield, owner of Ingram’s Ole Ingram Grocery, said the flood had not recognized social differences and nor would the recovery effort: “This is Americans taking care of Americans. There’s been such a tremendous outpouring of support and compassion.”

Down by the river, search crews were continuing to comb through debris and mud. Claud Johnson, the mayor of Ingram, was operating a digger up by Hunt. An EMS van pulled up, suggesting another body had been found. Helicopters continued to move overhead despite an incident on Monday when one was struck by a privately operated drone and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Three baristas from the Aftersome Coffee stand in San Antonio had come up to serve recovery workers. Allyson Bebleu said she had gone to church camp and it had given her some of her fondest memories.

“It’s not just for the wealthiest families, people of all types go to camp,” she said. “Everyone is putting themselves in the shoes of the Camp Mystic girls. It’s tragic.”

Camp Mystic was also the subject of a controversial video recently posed by Sade Perkins, a former member of Houston’s Food Insecurity Board. Perkins was “permanently removed” by John Whitmire, the Houston mayor, after she called Camp Mystic a “whites only” conservative Christian camp without even “a token Asian, they don’t have a token Black person”.

Richard Vela, whose 13-year-old daughter Maya was evacuated from a nearby camp, Camp Honey Creek, on Friday and was still too upset to discuss it, said Perkins’ comments “were not right. You don’t talk about people like that. There’s a lot of death going on and they still haven’t found everybody.”

Bruce Jerome, who was manning an outreach for flood survivors in Ingram, said he had known Jane Ragsdale, the director and longtime co-owner of Heart O’ the Hills Camp, in Hunt, Texas, who had died in the flooding.

“She was just genuinely wonderful,” Jerome said.

Further down the track to the river was Josey Garcia, a Democratic representative for San Antonio in the Texas state house. She and her team were also picking through the debris, pointing out vast piles that still need to be be sifted through.

Garcia, a military veteran, said it was important to come “and collaborate with our neighbors here to recover those that are missing and help Kerr county clean up. We’ve had folks coming from Laredo and outstate Kansas to lend assistance. It’s showing the spirit of Texas – when it comes to lives being devastated its our duty to step.”

Garcia, too, rejected negative characterizations of Camp Mystic.

“I’ve been hearing a lot of the rhetoric that’s been going around. This is not the time for those types of distinctions. I don’t care who was at the camp. All I know is that there are parents and families that are missing their loved ones. Whether it’s rich Caucasian children or any other children, we’d still be there.”