Christian Horner says he was right all along after seeing Red Bull’s 2026 car performance

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Red Bull have largely struggled so far in 2026, their first full year without Christian Horner as team principal.

While Max Verstappen has bagged a couple of podiums, he and Isack Hadjar sit seventh and eighth in the standings, with the team at risk of their worst constructors’ position (P4) in over 10 years.

In Sunday’s British Grand Prix, a furious Verstappen suffered his third DNF of the year after a rear-wing issue destabilised his car and sent him spinning into the gravel. Profiting from some trouble ahead, Hadjar finished fifth.

Christian Horner: I was right about Red Bull building their own engine, despite ‘doubters’

In addition to their unreliability, Red Bull’s car was significantly overweight before a recent upgrade in Austria. That was perhaps the biggest reason for their underwhelming results in the opening seven rounds.

Coming into 2026, Red Bull were expected to be down on power as they debuted their first-ever in-house engine. However, the FIA recently ruled that their internal combustion engine was the best in the field.

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This is a phenomenal achievement for a new manufacturer, even if the ruling prevents them from making upgrades and rivals may have been gaming the system.

For Horner, who attended the British GP, the performance of the power unit is vindication. He faced internal and external doubters when he commissioned the project after failed talks with Porsche.

He told The Times: “I can only be judged on what I did, so history will decide that, I guess. But I’m not looking for any plaudits. I’m happy in myself with what I was able to do.

“I’m sure while it is very inconvenient to be judged as the best combustion engine in Formula 1, it is a hell of an achievement. There’s a lot of others that haven’t achieved that and they’ve been doing it for 75 years.

“That relationship with Ford, the fuel ExxonMobil have contributed, that was a bubble-wrap factory five years ago. There was one person that had a little bit of experience at Cosworth, and that was all that team had.

“Within 55 weeks we built a factory, within 14 months we had an engine up and running, 650 people were recruited into that business, and over 200 of them came out of Mercedes Benz or HPP.

• READ MORE: F1 paddock questions Laurent Mekies’ handling of ‘political’ feud Christian Horner would’ve aced

“There were a lot of doubters, particularly externally. I was told I had Everest to climb. In all honesty, there were doubters internally. That’s one of the things that I regret the most, not seeing, is that engine power a car out of the garage.”

Horner added that it takes around a year for changes in personnel to affect performance. That may explain why Laurent Mekies eschewed credit when the car came alive last September, allowing Verstappen to hunt down the McLaren drivers in the championship.

Indeed, Horner signed off on the upgrade that transformed their outlook from Monza afterwards. They ultimately came up just two points short, and may now be paying the price for persisting with 2026 development so deep into the season.