Christian Horner delivers ‘bunch of managers’ verdict on modern team bosses
Christian Horner has described his team principal peers as 'a bunch of managers'.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has labelled the current generation of F1 team principals as “a bunch of managers,” a vastly different group to that he joined in 2005.
Horner’s tenure in F1 has netted eight drivers’ championships and six constructors’ crowns and afforded him a front-row seat for what has been a gradual changing of the guard up and down the paddock.
Christian Horner: Modern team bosses lack the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ of previous generations
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Horner is the longest-serving team principal, having taken on the top job at Red Bull Racing as it entered F1 when Dietrich Mateschitz acquired the under-performing Jaguar outfit.
It was a wildly different era, with a number of teams struggling financially; Red Bull purchased the failing Minardi operation to save it from extinction, rebranding it Toro Rosso in 2006.
There were no financial regulations in place, and prize money payments were heavily skewed to the established, successful teams such as Ferrari and McLaren.
The paddock was also filled with large personalities, often with decades of experience and significant skin in the game.
“When I came into the sport, sitting around the table was Bernie Ecclestone running it with Max Mosley [FIA President],” Horner told PlanetF1.com, in an exclusive interview.
“You had Ron Dennis running McLaren, Frank Williams at Williams, Jean Todt at Ferrari, and Flavio Briatore running Renault. Eddie Jordan was still around when I first started, and they were big personalities and big characters.
“Yes, there were always disagreements, but there was a commonality of agreeing on what was right for the business, and what was right for the sport, because they were all relatively entrepreneurial.”
Today, there is vastly less experience, and most team bosses are employees.
“Nowadays, you look around the room and, save for a few, it’s largely a bunch of managers, as opposed to perhaps that entrepreneurial spirit that existed previously,” Horner said.
“There were always rivalries; I mean, Jean and Ron never particularly saw eye-to-eye, but there was always respect that, sometimes, I think is a little lacking these days.”
More on Red Bull in Formula 1
👉 Inside Red Bull: Christian Horner and the other major players in Red Bull’s hierarchy
👉 F1 team principals’ rich list: Net worth figures revealed for Wolff, Horner and more
Horner has proved central to many of those rivalries.
He and Toto Wolff clashed famously during the 2021 championship battle, with honours shared; Horner saw his driver crowned champion, while Wolff took the Constructors’ title for Mercedes.
Zak Brown too has demonstrated he’s unafraid of throwing shade, prompting Horner to describe the McLaren CEO as “a pr**k” in the latest season of Drive to Survive.
And while they may disagree in a number of areas, they share the view that politicking is simply part of modern Formula 1, an element which at times takes on a life of its own.
“In the world of digital media, so much more is made out of things,” Horner said.
“There are a lot more keyboard warriors than there used to be when I first came into the sport.
“Honestly, we don’t pay any attention to it whatsoever. We just focus on our job, going racing and doing the best we can.
“Formula 1 is a complicated business, and there are so many aspects to it and to the sport.
“What you see trackside is only 20 per cent of the role, and I think you’ve got to get a good group of people around you. You’ve got to stick to your beliefs, you’ve got to work as a team and stay focused.
“The one thing that unites everybody within the business is the car and the performance of that car and, across all the different departments, how they work in tandem with each other is what dictates the end product.
“So, of course, there’s a political element dealing with the regulators, dealing with the commercial rights holder. There’s always been and always will be.”
Read next: Christian Horner: F1’s pantomime villain reveals how the ‘Piranha Club’ has evolved
