Extraordinary F1 2007 plot to oust Christian Horner and Helmut Marko revealed

Christian Horner and Helmut Marko’s transformation of Red Bull into an F1 behemoth almost failed before it even began, according to a former F1 team manager.

Red Bull may be the rulers of F1 in 2023, with Christian Horner having led the team since its inception to become one of the sport’s most successful outfits. But, as a young and unproven team boss, Horner and Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko were almost replaced by a more experienced F1 team manager.

In 2007, under Red Bull’s then-chief operating officer Dany Bahar, an approach was made to sign up Joan Villadelprat – a former chief mechanic from Ferrari who had risen to assume command at Tyrrell and Benetton, one of the men to oversee Michael Schumacher’s first two world titles in F1.

Joan Villadelprat reveals details of Red Bull’s F1 approach

In 2007, Villadelprat had been out of F1 for a few years and was concentrating on racing in the junior categories with his own Epsilon Euskadi outfit.

Thanks to his experience with Tyrrell, Benetton, and a short spell with the Prost team, he became a prime target for Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz as the company owner wanted to make changes in the early days of his teams.

Speaking from his home in Spain in an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com, Villadelprat recounted the story of how Horner and Marko were almost replaced as Mateschitz and Bahar sought to take the team in a different direction.

“Dietrich Mateschitz sent an airplane to Barcelona to pick me up and offered me to have Red Bull and Toro Rosso all under one roof,” Villadelprat said, recounting the day he was summoned before Mateschitz at Red Bull’s headquarters in Graz, Austria.

“The plan was to have me as the Managing Director with Christian Horner out.

“I said yes. Dany Bahar was the marketing head [Red Bull’s chief operating officer – editor]. Basically, Helmut was out and was going to be pushed out [by Bahar].

“So it seemed like they were not getting along with Christian and with the people in England, basically. Dietrich was pissed off because there was no communication with Austria – the two sides did not understand too much and they didn’t like that. They wanted more information and communication between the F1 project and Mateschitz.

“They lost faith in how the teams were working, and that was done by Helmut Marko. Bahar got Helmut out of the scene, outside, pulled to one side. Then they asked people, like Gerhard Berger [former Toro Rosso co-owner who worked with Villadelprat as a driver at Benetton], and my name came up. They decided to talk to me and see if I wanted to take over the two teams.

“At that moment in time, you could put the two teams under one roof and share machines and share a lot of things. There was room to do it under the rules. I said yes, that was not a problem.”

In 2007, Red Bull were in their third season in F1 and had been solid but unspectacular with David Coulthard as their lead driver and a bevy of junior Red Bull drivers slotting in alongside. Aside from a third-place finish with Coulthard at Monaco in 2006, points finishes had been the team’s limit – it took until 2008 and the increasing influence of famed designer Adrian Newey that the pieces of the puzzle that would lead to their success began to fall into place.

But, with Mateschitz’s patience being tested in ’07, Villadelprat said his greater experience at leading a team made negotiations with Mateschitz straightforward.

“In fact, I had a project already that was almost done because, in 2001, I had left Benetton [in 1999] to do an F1 project in Spain with Telefonica,” he said.

“We were 50% of Minardi, and then it was going to be another £20 million and we’d be 100% of Minardi. But then, the president of Telefonica was sacked and then the other project was in the sh*t.

“At that moment, I went to Prost, and then from Prost, I did my own team and so on. So, in 2007, they called me and they offered me the job – we spent three hours talking with Mateschitz.

“We got along very well. For whatever reason, there was difficult communication at Red Bull and they wanted to get rid of all the top [bosses].

“So we said OK, we shook hands, we talked about my salary and everything was done. It was just a question of putting it on paper and we just needed to sign it at the Monaco Grand Prix.”

Adrian Newey throws a spanner in the works

With the negotiations all but complete, and both sides happy to get started, it was only a discovery of the fine print in existing contracts that resulted in Villadelprat not usurping Horner from his role.

“Someone, I can’t remember who, found out that Adrian Newey’s contract said he would only answer to Mateschitz,” he said.

“He would not answer to me, he would not answer to anybody. So, me being in charge was not gonna work with Adrian. He was not gonna answer to me because his contract said he only had to answer to Mateschitz, and Dietrich didn’t want to talk to Adrian.

“Everything was done, we shook hands, and we said ‘See you in Monaco’. But when we found the problem with the contract with Adrian about how he could only answer to Mateschitz, he called me and asked what we could do about that.

“I said, ‘If Adrian is going to go, forget it. It’s better to have Adrian than to have me. Let’s forget about that. We shake hands and maybe, another time, we can talk’, and that was it.

“Mateschitz or Dany Bahar, one of them, gave me six Red Bull cars for the following year – four in Formula Renault 2.0 and two in World Series –  just to compensate for the mistake with me.”

But Villadelprat was offered a second chance at a Red Bull leadership role a few years later, with a leadership role at Toro Rosso coming up for grabs.

“In 2011, Franz Tost offered me a role at Toro Rosso again,” he said.

“That was to be a type of right-hand man to Tost, a role like an operations director working alongside him. So two times I’ve been offered to be at Red Bull.

“But, at the time, my son was sick with testicular cancer and I decided to stop and stay home. After that happened, I said no, now it’s not time to go to Italy, leave the family here and go because I can only know one way to work – 24 hours a day. Then you don’t have time for family and if a member of your family is ill, you do what you need to help support.

“But I had the offer in 2007 from Dietrich Mateschitz to run both Red Bull teams, and then again in 2011 to help run Toro Rosso! Christian was out – Dietrich hated him! Christian is still there because he helped Helmut get back in but, at the moment they offered me the job, it was to get Christian out.”

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While Villadelprat’s Red Bull offer fell apart and Red Bull sacked Bahar with Marko assuming a position of greater power, the sponsorship deal Villadelprat had negotiated with Bahar for the junior categories quickly fell apart – as Marko was overseeing everything to do with the Red Bull junior programme.

“Coming to the following year, Marko came to see me,” Villadelprat explained, saying he had had Marko’s verbal agreement that he would continue to enjoy Red Bull’s financial backing after winning a junior category championship.

“[Marko] said to me, ‘I want €25000 less in each car’. I said, ‘Sorry, we shook hands. We already have a deal.

‘If my team won the championship, I get my five cars as we agreed and we shook hands and we agree’.

“And he said ‘Nah nah nah, we cannot do that’. €125,000 is no big deal. But there was a question of balls. I said ‘Look, all that you can do is get up and get out of my office, and f**k off from my house’. And that was Helmut and me.

“When I go through the paddock, he puts his head down because he knows I can say to him that he is a s**t f**king person. I can tell that in his face and he will groan.

“Helmut is an old bastard. I am an old bastard, as well! I’m from the school where, if you shook hands, you had a contract.”

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