Drive to Survive: Red Bull boss Horner revels in Mercedes F1 disappointment

Hamilton, Horner, Verstappen, Abu Dhabi, 2021, generic — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Drive to Survive

Red Bull boss Horner revels in Mercedes F1 disappointment

Christian Horner enjoys seeing Mercedes lose after a long period of dominance

Shay Rogers

Tuesday 13 February 2024 11:57

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Christian Horner has worked hard to lead his Red Bull team back to winning ways and beyond Mercedes in Formula 1 – something he revealed to Netflix’s Drive to Survive that he loves.

It’s Drive to Survive release month - which means that here at GPFans, we’re taking a look back at some of the most significant storylines throughout the show’s history.

Five seasons of chaos and we’re sure to get even more of it when the sixth instalment premieres on 23 February - the last day of Formula 1’s 2024 pre-season test in Bahrain.

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Here is the latest article where our editorial team go harking back to pivotal moments on the amazing docuseries...

Horner leads the Bull's charge

Christian Horner at the FIA prize gala in 2023

It took Red Bull nearly a decade to catch up to their rivals at the front of the field during Formula 1’s turbo-hybrid era.

Years of poor reliability, slow engines and bad car design left them languishing and struggling to fight for the odd race win.

Eventually, after partnering with Honda, they managed to get a grip on their car design and began to make inroads on their competition – namely the dominant Mercedes outfit.

Five championships in three years have followed and they have asserted themselves as the class of the F1 field.

Horner: Everybody's quite enjoying this

Christian Horner was forced to watch on as Mercedes dominated the sport

But that came after plenty of time watching Mercedes enjoy plenty of success, and their downfall is something that Horner told Netflix that he enjoyed watching.

"Let's not forget, Mercedes have annihilated the opposition for seven years,” he said. “Seven years they have destroyed, you know, everybody, and finally you start to see problems. Everybody’s quite enjoying this.

“It’s a horrible feeling, you know, that suddenly you’re just part of the scenery, you’re not competing.

“And that takes an adjustment, and that can cause self-doubt, and it can create a whole bunch of emotions that haven’t been there, that haven’t been prevalent previously. You start to see cracks.”

The recent announcement that Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes will have cheered Horner up even more as his rivals grow weaker by the day.

But if his replacement turns out to be Italian hotshot Andrea Kimi Antonelli, then Red Bull may have an equally sized Max Verstappen-like problem for years to come.

The Silver Arrows will inevitably improve again, and Horner’s outfit won’t experience domination forever, leaving us in store for some fascinating racing in the future.

Red Bull Formula 1 Christian Horner Drive to Survive