Martin Brundle believes that it will be difficult for Christian Horner to return to the grid as the head of a 12th Formula One team, predicting pushback from the existing 11 organisations during the early stages of the new technical regulations.
Last month, The Times reported that Horner has assembled backers with over £1.5 billion in hand to fund the purchase of an existing outfit, and that both FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali are not opposed to the 51-year-old returning to the paddock as the head of a brand-new 12th team.
Horner has already been linked with moves to Aston Martin, Alpine, Ferrari, Haas and Cadillac since leaving Red Bull after the British Grand Prix earlier this year, but many of those linked have moved quickly to distance themselves from rumours.
“I think the current teams in Formula One will be pushing hard, as will other stakeholders, to say they don’t want a 12th team in Formula One at the moment while they’re all jockeying around trying to sort the 2026 regulations out,” Brundle told Sky Sports’ F1 Show.
“That might be an extra hurdle for Christian. Formula One’s his life – that’s where his skills and experience lie. He made it absolutely clear to me when I spoke to him that he will only come back if he’s got a skin in the game, if he’s got a share in the team and is building something, rather than being a manager as he was with Red Bull.
“He couldn’t get any shareholding in that. Toto Wolff is a good example of how to do that as a one-third shareholder in the Mercedes-Benz Formula One team. I’m sure there’ll be partners, as we like to call them, sponsors we might call them, and other people who might want to join Christian on that journey.”
While Horner is still plotting his route back into the F1 paddock, Red Bull have come on leaps and bounds since Laurent Mekies stepped in to replace him. Heading into the Brazilian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen has finished on the podium in the last six races, and the Milton Keynes squad have closed the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship battle.
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“Very impressed and he’s handling it in a very mature way,” Brundle said, looking at Mekies’ tenure so far. “Ego, absolutely non-existent. We’re seeing a new type of team principal these days, aren’t we?
“That’s why Christian wouldn’t want to come back as a team principal. I think with more of an engineering background, seems to be the way to tie together these vast quantities of highly specialised people in a team, and he’s got help with the politics, with Helmut Marko and others.
“So I think it’ll be a collaboration on the [2026] driver choice, probably more so than in the past among the senior people in Red Bull, but I think he actually is the right man for the right time in Formula One, and that’s the way it’s going.”