Horner or No Horner? That Is the Question for Ferrari

Ferrari says Frédéric Vasseur has its full confidence. Christian Horner, the former Red Bull team principal, says Ferrari is the one team he would still run without an ownership stake. Meanwhile, reports suggest Vasseur could be offered an “honourable discharge” at the end of the season. 

So, naturally, nobody knows what is going on at Maranello. The rumours have circulated for weeks, Ferrari keeps insisting that Vasseur is staying, and Horner appears to be enjoying himself far too much. Meanwhile, the results are making it increasingly difficult for Ferrari to pretend that everything is perfectly under control.

Is Vasseur actually the problem? Would Horner solve anything? More importantly, is Ferrari finally considering a change that goes beyond replacing one name with another?

Ferrari has made its position clear. Chief communication officer Maria Conti said the team has “full confidence” in Vasseur and his team, while its response to Horner’s comments was essentially that it is natural for professionals to aspire to work for Ferrari. 

In other words: officially, there is nothing to see here. Reading such team statements is like filing down a callus: painful and pointless.

Because the results are not exactly helping

Ferrari keeps talking about trust, cohesion, and steady progress. But at some point somebody has to explain where the actual progress is.

They have won two races this year. Both victories came when circumstances played a significant role, but those are apparently just details. The important thing is that there is steady progress. If that is the benchmark, perhaps three wins will be the target for 2027 – rather than the title itself.

The team has repeatedly shown enough pace to suggest that something bigger should be possible; it just keeps failing to turn that potential into a championship-calibre campaign. Vasseur has repeatedly argued that Ferrari has yet to unlock the car’s full potential. Yet if the latest upgrade is any indication, that potential remains rather more impressive on paper than on track. 

Baku did little to change that picture. Ferrari started from the front row and finished fourth and sixth. Vasseur admitted the team had expected more, despite knowing the circuit’s long straights would expose one of its weaknesses. He also pointed out that Ferrari still scored more points than McLaren – a comparison that is rather less impressive when one McLaren retired and the other finished 14th. 

Charles Leclerc was rather less optimistic after Baku, admitting that McLaren and Red Bull had taken a step forward while Mercedes was gaining in cornering speed. More importantly, Ferrari no longer had the strong chassis it had earlier in the season.

Vasseur does have defenders in the paddock. Williams team principal James Vowles recently backed him, pointing to Ferrari’s rear-wing and exhaust-blowing innovations, which other teams subsequently copied. “There is no question that Fred is the right person to do this,” Vowles said.

That is worth remembering. Ferrari’s problems do not necessarily mean Vasseur is incapable; the question is whether technical competence is enough for what Ferrari now needs. Then again, in F1, if your rivals are publicly defending you, perhaps you are doing something wrong.

1997 Formula One champion Jacque Villeneuve, meanwhile, believes the criticism of Vasseur is hardly unique to him. “The team principal is never the scapegoat, he’s the top of the organisation. When things go well, he looks great, when things don’t go well, he’s the one who takes the beating,” he said. So even if Ferrari decides that a change is necessary, that does not mean the next team principal would automatically solve the problem. 

The man who would happily take the Ferrari job – but he is no magic wand

Horner spent nearly two decades running Red Bull, leading the team to six Constructors’ and eight Drivers’ championships. He was dismissed by Red Bull in 2025 and is now available, having made no secret of his interest in Ferrari. 

“At this stage in my life, there’s only one team for which I would accept non-participation in ownership. I mean, Ferrari is the biggest brand in Formula One. It’s the dream. And arguably it’s the sleeping giant of Formula One. I feel I’ve still got one more dance in me. And Toto [Wolff] needs his f***ing hair ruffled,” Horner said. 

Former Ferrari boss Maurizio Arrivabene has a fairly reasonable answer to whether Horner would solve Ferrari’s problems: probably not on his own. “It’s not just one man, however decorated he may be, who can solve the problems,” Arrivabene said. 

And, annoyingly, he has a point. Horner would inherit an organisation with its own culture, hierarchy, and technical problems. His previous success would not magically rebuild Ferrari overnight.

But that is also what makes him interesting. Horner would represent a completely different way of running the team. He has spent years at the centre of Formula One’s political game, dealing with rivals, the FIA, and the media at the highest level.

Ferrari has had plenty of technically competent people. The question is whether it also needs a different kind of political operator.

The rumours have clearly made Vasseur tired of answering questions about Horner. “But it is what it is, it’s not in my hands. Mr Horner is looking for a job – that everybody knows – everywhere. But what can I do?” Vasseur said.

Ferrari could also consider internal alternatives, including Antonello Coletta and Jérôme D'Ambrosio. Neither would represent the kind of dramatic reset that Horner would. And perhaps that is the real question Ferrari has to answer: does it want continuity, or is it actually prepared to change the way the team operates beyond the garage?

The political question

This is where the Horner idea becomes particularly interesting. You can challenge a decision publicly after it has been made, but that is not the same as having enough political influence to stop the decision from being made in the first place. Vasseur says Ferrari raised concerns with the FIA about the new starting procedure well before the 2026 regulations were finalised, but the change still happened.

Horner’s experience is different. After nearly two decades running Red Bull, he knows how to turn technical and regulatory disputes into political battles – and how to make his team’s interests difficult for the FIA and rivals to ignore.

Vasseur’s approach is generally more measured. When asked whether Mercedes really had the most powerful engine, given George Russell’s qualifying advantage in Azerbaijan, he simply replied: “That’s a good question. You should ask the FIA.” 

Perhaps the “full confidence” message is less a vote of confidence than a final reprieve: give Vasseur one more chance while taking some pressure off him. His approach worked at Sauber, but Ferrari has always been a political beast. 

That does not mean Horner – arguably one of the few people with comparable political experience to Wolff – would necessarily be better at the job. But if Ferrari believes some of its recent problems have been political as well as technical, changing the person at the top could make a lot more sense.

The Ferrari problem

Christian Horner on the Ferrari pit wall. Lewis Hamilton in red. Toto Wolff on the other side of the paddock. Honestly, that would be quite a plot twist – and one I would very much like to see. But the bigger question is whether Ferrari actually wants the kind of disruption Horner would bring.

From the outside, Ferrari often appears more comfortable with established approaches and internal consensus than with someone arriving and radically changing the way things are done. Jean Todt, however, showed that an outsider can work at Ferrari. He arrived in 1993 and ultimately built the structure that delivered the team’s most successful period in Formula One. The lesson is not that Ferrari should avoid outsiders, but that it has to be willing to give one enough authority – and enough time – to actually change the organisation. 

But a Horner appointment would only work if Ferrari were willing to let Horner be Horner. His appeal lies partly in his forceful, political style, which may not fit easily with Ferrari’s management culture. Bringing in a strong personality only to constrain him would defeat the purpose.

Timing matters too. Ferrari is already deep into its 2027 project and new power unit, making a team principal change during that transition more complicated than simply changing the name at the top.

That is why the debate should not really be reduced to “Vasseur or Horner?” The bigger question is what Ferrari actually wants from its next team principal. If it wants stability, an internal candidate could make sense. If it wants a complete change of approach, Horner is obviously the more radical choice.

Martin Brundle has offered a warning against treating another change at the top as a solution in itself. “There’s no point to keep changing key personnel,” the Sky Sports F1 commentator said, arguing that team principals increasingly need to stay calm and support each other. That may be the strongest argument against Horner: Ferrari could simply end up creating a new problem without solving the old one if the change is made for the sake of change itself.

There is no confirmation that Horner is actually being lined up as Vasseur’s replacement. But after years of hearing about cohesion, steady progress, and focusing on the work, a little chaos at Maranello would certainly make Formula One more interesting.

And, frankly, I would love to see Toto’s reaction. “No, Christian. No. This is so not right.”