Christian Horner’s Red Bull Memoir “Drive” Promises the Unfiltered Story Behind F1’s Most Explosive Exit

Christian Horner spent two decades building Red Bull into the most dominant team Formula 1 has seen in the modern era – six constructors’ titles, eight drivers’ championships, and a 2023 season where the team won 21 of 22 races. Now, nearly a year after his exit from Milton Keynes, he’s putting it all on paper.

Horner’s memoir, Drive, is scheduled for release on October 22. The book will cover his full 20-year run as team principal and CEO, and the audiobook will be narrated by Horner himself.

There’s Plenty of Material to Work With

At 31, Horner took the helm at Red Bull in 2005, a age that made him the most junior team principal Formula 1 had ever seen. The team went on to dominate Formula 1 with four consecutive titles from 2010 through 2013, before enduring a difficult era of Mercedes supremacy, ultimately finding its way back to the front with Max Verstappen and a new partnership with Honda. By 2023, the team was essentially untouchable.

The final chapter, though, is messier. In early 2024, a female Red Bull employee brought allegations of inappropriate and controlling behaviour against Horner. An independent investigation cleared him, but leaked messages allegedly of connected messages surfaced the following day, keeping the story alive. Red Bull’s performance dropped through the 2025 season, Verstappen’s frustrations with the car became public, and key figures departed the team. Horner’s tenure as team principal came to an end following the British Grand Prix in July 2025, with his departure from the organisation completed by September and said to have come with a pre-tax payout of around £80 million.

Laurent Mekies, previously team principal at Racing Bulls, has since taken over at Red Bull.

A memoir covering that arc – from the garage at a newly founded team to one of the sport’s biggest exits in recent memory – has obvious appeal for F1 fans. Whether Horner addresses the misconduct allegations directly, and how candidly he handles the internal fallout of his final months, will determine whether Drive is a genuine account or a polished victory lap. Given that he’s narrating it himself, the smart money is probably somewhere in between.