Red Bull Formula One boss Christian Horner: Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel don't fit Red Bull philosophy

Red Bull

Hamilton and Vettel don't fit Red Bull philosophy says Horner

Red Bul remain focused on promoting youth despite top stars being on the market

Sam Hall

Thursday 6 February 2020 17:38

Red Bull boss Christian Horner says that neither Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel would be right for Red Bull, the team placing a large focus on bringing through young talent rather than hiring existing drivers.

When Red Bull entered into Formula One, the team hired David Coulthard to race alongside the young talents of Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi. Klien and Liuzzi would share the second car across the season.

Klien would remain with the team into 2006 but was replaced by Robert Doornbos for the final three rounds of the year.

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Mark Webber joined the team for 2007 and the Australian would prove to be the final driver to be brought in from another team. Webber was also 30-years old by the time he joined the Red Bull team and had five years of Grand Prix racing behind him. In this respect, the signing also marked a turning point for the team.

Coulthard and Webber remained teammates until the end of 2008. For 2009, Sebastian Vettel joined the team and, accompanied by a huge set of regulation changes, Red Bull climbed to the summit of the sport.

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Since Vettel's promtion from Toro Rosso, Red Bull have only promoted talent from within their own ranks and, while Vettel is being cautiously linked with a return to the team with which he won four-world titles, Horner says that placing Vettel alongside Verstappen would not work.

“It’s difficult to see how two alphas can fit in a team," said Horner at a Red Bull team event. "You can see the problem that Ferrari have had. Why would it be any different at Red Bull with two alpha drivers?.

“Same with Lewis at Ferrari or Lewis at Red Bull. That is a very difficult dynamic, especially in a tight competition.

“We have Max. We have always taken the policy if investing in young talent, nurturing and developing that talent. Lewis doesn’t fit into that.”

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It is public knowledge that both Hamilton and Vettel are out of contract at Mercedes and Ferrari respectively at the end of the 2020 season and, although Horner offered no opinion on where Vettel would be racing in 2021, Horner admitted that he could only see Hamilton remaining at Mercedes.

“Two of the major seats are now filled. Logic would say that he’ll remain in his current team if they can agree terms,” continued Horner.

“All the automotive sector have got financial pressure at the moment, so when there’s redundancies being made I guess it’s difficult to justify record-breaking salaries.

“I would assume it will be a normal commercial negotiation between the driver and his team. Ferrari could be a possibility for him, how much is difficult for me to gauge.

“He seems happy in the environment he’s in. If it’s the most competitive environment, why would he want to change that for the sake of driving in a different colour? So I don’t subscribe to that theory.”