Christian Horner names UNACCEPTABLE trait he changed at Red Bull

Christian Horner

Horner names UNACCEPTABLE trait he changed at Red Bull

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Thursday 29 June 2023 08:57

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Christian Horner has talked about the mood at Red Bull when he arrived at the team in 2005, admitting that he couldn't accept certain mindsets.

The energy drink company took over the team formerly known as Jaguar Racing, and a young Horner arrived in the first year of the Red Bull era to give direction to the F1 newbies.

The team wasn't one of the better funded on the grid at that time, and Horner told Sky Sports' 'Secret to Success' documentary that there was a lack of ambition in the factory that he refused to let slide.

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“What I could see when I came here was lots of department working individually, not collectively," he said. "There'd been a revolving door of management through the Jaguar years and people became battle-hardened to that, and they probably thought 'oh here's another one, a 31-year-old kid turning up, he probably won't last long'."

Horner: 'I just wouldn't accept that'

If anybody did think that their young team boss would be in and out of the door that quickly, they were sorely mistaken. Horner is still with the team nearly two decades later, and has taken them to heights that no team except Mercedes has scaled in that time.

“It was then a question of winning hearts and minds and changing, breaking down that culture," he continued.

“The team had a perception of 'we've got the seventh biggest budget, we'll finish seventh because it's a sport that's dictated by funding'. Well, I just wouldn't accept that. It's a question of how you apply yourself and how you apply yourself to the task.”