Christian Horner sexting accuser is SUSPENDED by Red Bull after Geri Halliwell’s demands she be ‘out of the picture’
CHRISTIAN Horner’s accuser has been suspended from Red Bull following the F1 boss’s embarrassing sext scandal.
The shock move comes after Horner’s Spice Girl wife Geri Halliwell demanded he cut off contact with her.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner in the Paddock ahead of F1 practice today in Saudi Arabia
Christian Horner with wife Geri at the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix last weekend
F1 champion Max Verstappen with boss Horner after winning the season-opener race last weekend
Geri, who staged a public and awkward show of support for her husband at the Bahrain Grand Prix last weekend, had wanted the employee “out of the picture”.
Horner’s distraught wife, 51, was understood to have laid down ground rules over her hubby’s future behaviour after the embarrassing dossier of his seedy texts were leaked online.
The unidentified woman, who The Sun understands has been suspended on full pay, had complained that Horner sent her hundreds of “sexually suggestive” messages.
The claim was thrown out in an internal probe just hours before the bombshell leak of hundreds of messages.
Horner, 50, was seen in the Saudi Arabia paddock today for practice ahead of the next race without Geri by his side.
Geri was mid-air on her way to Bahrain after her husband was cleared when the texts were published widely online via an anonymous email drop.
She was apparently “relieved and elated” after the complaint was initially thrown out, but later left “stunned” by the leaked messages.
Halliwell and Horner have been married since 2015 and share a son.
Sources told The Sun she was left frustrated on Monday after learning the woman at the centre of the storm was staying put and had engaged high-powered lawyers to fight her corner.
She was reportedly still at her desk in the Milton Keynes Red Bull HQ despite being locked in the explosive dispute with her married boss.
The anonymous colleague even asked to fly to the Bahrain Grand Prix to support the team last weekend.
But his female accuser has reportedly not been seen at HQ since Monday after being told to stay at home.
A source told The Sun on Monday: “It’s frustrating for everyone and ridiculous to try to maintain business as usual in the circumstances.
“The woman’s role involves continuing contact with Christian and they are having to get on with day-to-day work as though nothing has happened. But something has to give.
“She wanted to fly to Bahrain in her work role but that would have created a circus which no one wants and would be good for no one.
“Everyone at Red Bull and the wider world of F1 knows the identity of the woman at the centre of this.
How Christian Horner’s shock texts were leaked
By Ben Hunt
IT was an anonymous email sent and designed for maximum impact.
It landed in my inbox almost 24 hours to the minute since Christian Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing following Red Bull’s internal investigation.
Other names included Liberty Media chief Greg Maffei, who owns the rights to F1. The FIA president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem and F1 CEO Stefano Dominacali.
The F1 team bosses were also included for good measure. As was Max Verstappen’s father, Jos.
It was from an anonymous sender, the title was simply the date – ‘Feb Twenty Nine’.
Inside it was a Google Drive link containing 79 files claiming to be the evidence from the independent investigation.
There is no way of knowing if they were real or fake yet irrespectively it sent another shockwave through the F1 paddock before this season had even started.
Horner was sitting on the team’s pitwall during second practice in Bahrain when the email dropped.
After the session, he walked out of the team’s garage and into the hospitality unit where he remained as the nuclear fallout began.
He’d survived the outcome of the internal investigation into improper conduct following a complaint from a female colleague.
One wonders whether he will survive this time after this very public humiliation – again, irrespective if they were indeed real or fake.
Just hours earlier, McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, called on the sport’s governing body, the FIA, demanding transparency.
“I just read the statement, which was pretty basic,” said Wolff. “My personal opinion is we can’t really look behind the curtain.
“There is a lady in an organisation that has spoken to HR and said there was an issue and it was investigated and yesterday the sport has received the message that it’s all fine, we’ve looked at it.
“I believe with the aspiration as a global sport, on such critical topics, it needs more transparency and I wonder what the sport’s position is?
“We’re competitors, we’re a team and we can have our own personal opinions or not. But it’s more like a general reaction or action that we as a sport need to assess, what is right in that situation and what is wrong.
“Are we talking with the right moral approach, with the values based on the speculation that is out there? As a sport, we cannot afford to leave things vague and opaque on critical topics like this, because this is going to catch us out.”
Brown added: “It’s the responsibility ultimately of the organisers of Formula One, the owners of Formula One, to make sure that all the racing teams and the personnel and the drivers and everyone else involved in the sport are operating in a manner in which we all live by.
“I don’t think it’s the teams’ roles and responsibilities. That’s up to FIA and Formula One to ultimately decide and ask what they feel gives them the level of transparency they need to ultimately come to their conclusion and we just have to count on them that they fulfil that obligation to all of us.”
The emailed file will only increase that pressure in the form of scrutiny on Horner – who has always denied the accusations.
It does also put Red Bull in a tricky position.
Should the emailed file be legitimate and have made up elements from the initial report, which had been thoroughly examined and presented by the independent KC, then surely this is nothing new to them and their decision to stick with their team principal remains.
To perform a u-turn on that simply now they have become public would possibly see criticism that they intended to keep their report private to save face.
Whatever the outcome, it is a mess for the world champions.
Reports of a wedge driven between Horner and Verstappen’s father have grown in recent weeks.
So it was interesting that Jos Verstappen was in the paddock and wearing a team jacket and seemed unmoved to the chaos happening around him.
“She has also acquired very expensive lawyers who have been advising her since the scandal blew up — but no one knows who’s paying for them.
“It all plays into claims that there’s a conspiracy to unseat Christian.”
Tensions inside the Red Bull team are mounting after Jos Verstappen, father of Red Bull’s world champ and top driver Max, warned the camp could “explode” if Horner stays in his £8million-a-year role.
The two men were seen locked in what looked like a fiery argument during the F1 season opener — in which Red Bull stormed to first and second places thanks to Max and team-mate Sergio Perez.
Sky Sports footage showed Horner and Jos apparently arguing, following reports they have previously clashed in a rift that has lasted for months.
Red Bull declined to comment.
Geri flew to Bahrain last weekend and put on a very public show of support with husband Horner
Tensions are rising in the Red Bull camp as Jos Verstappen has been outspoken following Horner’s sexting scandal
The pair have been married since 2015 and share a son
