It’s hard not to admire the cockiness of Christian Horner

Jim WhiteWed, October 14, 2026 at 11:44 AM UTC

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Christian Horner’s new memoir, Drive, only briefly addresses the allegations he faced in 2024 - Getty Images/Bryn LennonFor those of us whose interest in Formula One was first piqued by the television series Drive to Survive, it’s impossible to pick up Christian Horner’s memoir and not turn to the penultimate chapter. In truth, we’re not interested in engines, lap times or tyre swaps. What we want is behind-the-scenes shenanigans, back-stabbing and double-dealing. When it comes to that side of things, there’s no one to match Horner, who has called himself the “Darth Vader” of the series for his ruthless, entrepreneurial leadership of Red Bull Racing.

For those of us whose interest in Formula One was first piqued by the television series Drive to Survive, it’s impossible to pick up Christian Horner’s memoir and not turn to the penultimate chapter. In truth, we’re not interested in engines, lap times or tyre swaps. What we want is behind-the-scenes shenanigans, back-stabbing and double-dealing. When it comes to that side of things, there’s no one to match Horner, who has called himself the “Darth Vader” of the series for his ruthless, entrepreneurial leadership of Red Bull Racing.

And what we’re keen to know about most are the allegations he faced back in 2024, of inappropriate behaviour towards a female colleague and the “hundreds” of WhatsApp messages that came with it. (Horner has denied the allegations, and was cleared by two internal investigations at Red Bull Racing, where he was chief executive until his sacking in July of last year.)

Sadly, if you were hoping for the inside line in Drive,you’ll be disappointed. Brief to the point of being dismissive, Horner’s recall of the issue is largely of the inconvenience and personal distress that it caused him and his family. There’s no detail, no explanation, no mention even of what the claims entailed. The words “inappropriate and controlling behaviour” are nowhere in sight.

Which is an irony as this is the story of a man who, it is clear on every page, likes to be in charge. Indeed, reading of his early life, one finds it hard – despite that public image radiating icy disdain – not to have a sneaking admiration for him. His ability to control events was there from the start. Not born into privilege, lacking anyone within the sport to give him a leg up, he was, he writes, absolutely determined to become a Formula One driver.

There was just one problem as he began tearing round tracks in go-karts: his imagination was a little too overwrought. “I did my best to rationalise the events: they were unlucky,” he would tell himself when he learnt of crashes and deaths. “But my subconscious was drafting an entirely different narrative. If they could die, I could die too. As these coping mechanisms eventually lost their power, I found it harder to suppress the fear.”

Losing his bottle, he decided instead to let others do the driving while he ran his own team. Through his 20s, Horner created an outfit called Arden Racing that, by the time he was finished with it, was recording a revenue of more than £2m a year. He did this by applying nuclear levels of persistence: “I met my future sponsors in person, greeting them with a sturdy handshake before pitching them what I hoped was an interesting career narrative – and all while trying my best to deliver a reassuring level of self-confidence.” He was, in short, cocky. In the process, he made himself very visible. So visible that when Red Bull, the Austrian energy drink manufacturer, took over Jaguar Racing, he was the man they employed to run it.

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Horner as team principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing in May 2025 - Getty Images/Mark Thompson

Horner quickly learnt that in Formula One, everything was a race, every aspect of the business a competitive scrap. Not just in terms of delivering the best engineering, but in negotiating the politics, the wheeler-dealing. He came to terms with the terrain, if in a self-revealing way: “I was discovering that it was better, and easier, to ask for forgiveness than for permission,” he writes.

This was a man who, in pursuit of the finish line, proved beyond ruthless. As he recalls things, though, if he was hard, he was always fair. His memory of conversations invariably is one in which he was the rational, calm and reasonable participant. Though you have to wonder whether his memory of what he shouted at the race controller during a particularly fraught Monaco Grand Prix may be lacking a touch of verbal colour. “‘Come on, Michael, we need to get this race going,’ I said. ‘It’ll be such a shame to end everything under a safety [car].’”

Horner was always adept at ensuring that problems did not become public. He writes of one internal spat between his drivers that led to a collision on the track: “‘We’ll explain this as a racing accident,’ I said to the communications team. It was their job to extinguish the PR fires.” Such was his ability to manage that within five years of arriving at Red Bull, he’d steered the team to its first of many titles. As he began to dominate the sport, taking on drivers such as Max Verstappen, his renown became wider.

Race winner Max Verstappen and Horner celebrate after the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in 2024 - Getty Images/Clive Rose

And it became wider still when he married the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell in 2015. She was there very publicly beside him when the scandal hit, walking through the grid at the Bahrain Grand Prix her hand in his, looking like the wife of a Tory MP just hit by some alleged impropriety involving a junior researcher. She maintained a mask of smooth aloofness.

Horner married the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell in 2015 (pictured at Royal Ascot this year) - Getty Images/Max Mumby/Indigo

Yet the moment Horner told her of the charges is the most revealing thing in this book. As he remembers it: “Geri knew by my face that something was very wrong. She frowned as I repeated what the lawyer had said. She fell silent as she listened. We both understood the implications immediately. She looked at me. ‘Just tell your truth,’ she said.” It’s very Drive to Survive.

Drive is published by Bantam at £25. To order your copy, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”