Horner tries to put brake on Whatsapp leak
Messages purportedly between Red Bull chief and female staff member anonymously shared
CHRISTIAN HORNER must have been looking forward to the start of the Formula One season. His Red Bull team are favourites to again dominate the championship while on Wednesday he was cleared of “coercive behaviour” following an internal inquiry conducted by an independent KC.
But yesterday, his world exploded. Again. Whatsapp messages, purportedly between the Red Bull chief executive and a female employee, were leaked from an anonymous email account called febtwentyninth@gmail.com at 3pm.
The timing – on the eve of the first Grand Prix of the season held in Bahrain – could not have been juicier. A total of 79 screenshots were sent to a variety of outlets and inevitably began appearing on social media, firstly on Weibo, China’s equivalent to Facebook, and then more on X, formerly Twitter.
The screenshots contain hundreds of messages and a number of images, allegedly between Horner and the female employee who had made a complaint against him.
Among those who received the email were members of the Formula One paddock, including Mohamed Ben Sulayem, the FIA president, Stefano Domenicali, the F1 chief executive, and the grid’s nine other team principals.
Horner, 50, who is married to Geri Halliwell, the former Spice Girl, tried to put brakes on the story spreading in a manoeuvre his Red Bull driver Max Verstappen would be proud of.
He issued a legal letter from Harbottle & Lewis, the go-to law firm for celebrities trying to protect their privacy and reputation, threatening to sue any organisation that made the messages public. Horner’s lawyers argue that publication of the messages would be unlawful and repeated his denials of the allegations.
It remains unclear if the messages formed part of the investigation into Horner that had been ordered by the team’s parent company Red Bull Gmbh, which is based in Austria.
On Wednesday, Red Bull said the “grievance has been dismissed” and its independent investigation was “fair, rigorous and impartial”. But it refused to make the report public and declined to name the KC who carried it out.
Horner’s famous wife, once known as Ginger Spice, had been due in Bahrain to offer her husband support. She hadn’t shown up by yesterday evening. Horner – known as Whinger Spice in some quarters of the F1 world for his endless complaining about decisions affecting his team – will be hoping she gives him a public display of support.
Horner, who was at the Red Bull pit wall for both practice sessions, said in a statement that did not directly address the veracity or appropriateness of the messages: “I will not comment on anonymous speculation, but to reiterate I have always denied the allegations. I respected the integrity of the independent investigation and fully co-operated with it every step of the way.
“It was a thorough and fair investigation conducted by an independent specialist barrister and it has concluded dismissing the complaint made.”
The messages will further test media law. While the UK has some of the most restrictive libel and privacy laws in the world, F1 is a global sport and coverage elsewhere might not be so forgiving.
Mark Stephens, a media law expert and partner at Howard Kennedy solicitors, said: “This is an abject demonstration of how out of date and touch we are in the UK with the reality of global media. We are getting into the farcical situation where British newspapers are not able to publish while the messages are all over the internet and in newspapers ... around the world.”
Mr Stephens added: “Clearly somebody has it in for Horner and he must try to trace that directly ... Whether true or false, this appears to be an attempt to try and oust him from his job.”
For now Horner has two battles to fight. One is commercial: to stay chief executive of the Red Bull team which he has transformed into the best in the world. The second is to keep his marriage intact. Will Ginger Spice be sticking with Whinger Spice? The race is on.
‘Whether true or false, this appears to be an attempt to try and oust him from his job’