Aston Martin has reportedly made a fresh approach to Christian Horner, reviving a story that has followed the former Red Bull boss since he left the paddock last summer.
According to the Daily Mail, team owner Lawrence Stroll has once again reached out to Horner about taking up a role at Silverstone. This is not the first attempt. Stroll is said to have come close to signing Horner a few months ago, only for those talks to collapse at the last moment. With Aston Martin’s season going from bad to worse, the door appears to have reopened.
The timing says a lot. Aston Martin entered 2026 with sky high expectations. Stroll has poured billions into the team, built a new factory and wind tunnel, signed Adrian Newey, and struck an exclusive engine partnership with Honda. Yet eight rounds into the season, the team has managed just a single World Championship point. Newey himself admitted this week that the operation had been “relying on tools and processes that had been patched and bodged for years,” some dating back to the site’s earlier days as the Jordan team.
Newey took over as team principal in November 2025, barely eight months after joining Aston Martin, but juggling that job alongside his technical work appears to have stretched him thin. He has also dealt with health issues that kept him away from a handful of races this year. Reports now suggest Stroll believes Newey needs to step back from team principal duties so he can focus purely on the car, which would open a path for Horner to step into a leadership role.
Money is unlikely to be the obstacle. Horner received a reported £80 million settlement when he departed Red Bull, and his gardening leave under that contract expired earlier this year, leaving him free to join any team. What has stalled previous talks, according to people close to the situation, is the type of role on offer. Horner is said to want more than just a team principal title this time around. He is looking for equity, a genuine stake in whichever team he joins next, something he never received during his two decades at Red Bull. Aston Martin has already shown willingness to structure deals that way, having given Newey a five percent shareholding when he arrived.
Aston Martin has stuck to its standard line when asked about the rumours, saying only that it does not comment on speculation. Horner has also stayed quiet publicly, and Aston Martin is far from the only team linked to him. He has been repeatedly connected to a minority investment in Alpine, held exploratory talks about a possible new team with Chinese manufacturer BYD, and was reportedly floated as a candidate for Ferrari before that team extended Fred Vasseur’s contract instead.
For now, Aston Martin looks like the most active of those options, driven by a season that has fallen well short of its billion dollar ambitions. Whether that translates into an actual appointment remains to be seen, but the pressure on Stroll to make a bold move is clearly building.
