Why the fallout from Christian Horner's sexting scandal is still being felt one year on, writes JONATHAN McEVOY - and could end up with Max Verstappen quitting Red Bull

All was calm on the steps of Red Bull's hospitality area in Bahrain on Saturday. Drivers, boffins and mechanics went about their work in seamless harmony (if not in great hope of success, to put it mildly).

A year ago, though, it was the scene of the most febrile, turbulent and toxic days Formula One's varied drama has ever served up.

A crisis has been averted in large part, but, as we shall explain, the saga may have one final, stunning instalment left to unravel.

The high point of the story dates to last year here in the desert, where Christian Horner — husband of Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, as headline writers often described him — was fighting for his survival as the £8million-a-year-boss of Red Bull, the sport's most successful team of recent times.

A female employee had accused him of 'coercive behaviour', accusations he has always denied. He was gaunt and harassed as the accusation pinged around the world. Netflix cameras camped outside the Red Bull hospitality area, as we all did.

Eyes were fixed on the body language of those interacting there. Faked shows of unity between different factions in a riven team, some of which wanted Horner out on his ear, were minutely analysed.

Horner shook hands and chatted in apparent friendship with Jos Verstappen, ex-F1 driver and father of the team's superstar and then triple world champion Max. Their conversation, caught by a hundred lenses, lasted two minutes. Verstappen Snr wanted Horner gone and their chat was hardly the most genuine.

A more honest scene I remember well unfolded once the camera crews had gone to their hotels on the Friday night. I was on the phone to my office in London, walking outside the Red Bull house keeping an eye on what intrigue might yet be unfolding in the lightbulb-lit gloom.

Next to me, pacing up and down in clear angst, was Jos. He looked over, and paced again, expelling anger brewing inside him. I broke off from my telephone call pronto and spoke to him.

He had just emerged from Horner's office straight from a brutal row. He was hissing fury. What he said to me that night remains private. But, next day, a few hours before the race, he called me over to tell me — this time for publication — that unless Horner quit or was axed the team would 'explode'.

This outpouring followed the most remarkable incident I can remember in any paddock. As second practice started, a cache of what seemed to be text messages between the complainant and Horner landed in an email sent to the sport's high-rollers and journalists, 149 recipients in all. It was 6pm and Geri (now Geri Halliwell-Horner after a recent name change) was just landing in Manama, the kingdom's capital.

To this day the identity of who sent the email is unproven. They ostensibly came from two addresses, 'February 29' and 'Anonymous Reporter'. The Red Bull team investigated their true origin but came up with no firm answers, only suspicions.

In an internal war, the Austrian side of the company headed by Mark Mateschitz, son of the energy drink company's founder Dietrich, were believed to want Horner out. The Englishman was seen as trying to seize too much power in the wake of Dietrich's death in 2022. The Verstappens were inclined to this camp.

Horner, however, maintained the support of the Thai end of the business, Dietrich's fellow Red Bull founder, Chalerm Yoovidhya. He remained 51 per cent co-owner of the wider company, as opposed to its F1 derivative, Red Bull GmbH.

As Geri touched down in the Gulf on a private jet, she knew that a senior lawyer — whose identity has never been divulged — had exonerated Horner (before another unnamed KC upheld the original judgment several months later) and she had decided to stick by her man. The leaked emails were nevertheless said to have sent her 'into meltdown'.

In the weekend's most memorable vignette of several, she walked down the paddock in a show of matrimonial solidarity hand in hand with Horner. The cameras followed their every agonising step of the extraordinary walk. They sat for lunch with Yoovidhya and his wife Daranee.

As we know now, Horner rode out the storm. The woman (whose identity we cannot reveal for legal reasons) remains employed but suspended. There was talk of her going to an employment tribunal, but meanwhile she has been negotiating a severance payment that may run into a seven-figure sum. Agreement has yet to be reached.

Horner always insisted, even in the middle of the most severe headwinds, that it was 'business as normal'. Yet not long afterwards Adrian Newey, F1's most venerated designer, left Red Bull, eventually moving to Aston Martin after talks with Ferrari collapsed.

Through all the upheaval, and a season of decline from the team's previous position of invincibility, Horner was buttressed so long as Max Verstappen remained on board. He was, and remains, Red Bull's most prized asset by far. He even managed to win a fourth title in a car that for most of the season was inferior to the McLaren.

Verstappen showed maturity and pragmatism. He supported his father but kept his calm, knowing that further disturbance was detrimental to performance. He also, rightly, hailed Horner's phenomenal achievements — now 14 world titles in two phases at the head of a team he ran from its inception in 2005. Much has calmed down. The internal war is enjoying a relative ceasefire. But the question of Verstappen's future is that one final pivotal act I referred to.

Aged 27, the Dutchman is at the peak of his powers. His contemporaries are in awe, as Stirling Moss's were in the years after Juan Manuel Fangio retired and before the great Englishman's career ended at Goodwood in 1962.

One of Verstappen's fellow world champions whom I spoke to the other day in Bahrain, blew out his cheeks and said, unsolicited: 'He might be the best we've ever seen.' The Verstappen-Red Bull dynamic is coming to a potential crunch moment. He has a clause in his contract, which runs until 2028, that allows him to walk away if he is not lying third in the standings. That get-out can, I am told, be activated as early as this summer. If triggered, he has various options. He could renegotiate a new one-year deal to remain at Red Bull for 2026 and wait to see which team best tackles the new regulations coming in next season and then plump for the juiciest destination.

For now, he is grappling with the limitations of his car and, adding salt to his concerns, he was less than thrilled with Horner's brother-in-arms, 81-year-old Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko, sacking Liam Lawson as his fellow driver just two races into the season. Verstappen and Marko have been very tight over the years but the New Zealander's summary dismissal strained the relationship. Ironically, it was Horner putting his arm around the axed Lawson.

Mercedes are keen pursuers. And what about Aston Martin? Though off the pace now, they are ambitious and high spending. In fact, Verstappen could practically choose any team he liked.

And should he decide to leave Red Bull, the seeds of his departure may be said to have been sown in Bahrain, and its surrounding brouhaha, one year ago.