Christian Horner wanted to be a racing driver and he pursued this goal with great commitment. But shortly after Horner started his own team, a special experience on the racetrack caused him to give up his dream and choose a different career path.
In the “Extraordinary Tales With Seb Coe” podcast, Horner talks about this key moment: It was a winter test before the 1998 Formula 3000 season at Estoril in Portugal.
“I can remember coming out of the pit lane. Juan Pablo Montoya overtook me in what was then a fast right-hand bend at the end of the straight, where the crash barriers were really only a few meters from the road. If there had been an accident, it would would have been like a small plane crash.”
Horner makes a momentous decision
Because the Formula 3000 racing cars of the 1998 season – all drivers used standard vehicles of the type Lola T96/50 with around 450 hp – were practically only surpassed by Formula 1 in European single-seater racing.
Or as Horner puts it himself: “The further up you get, the more power the cars have and the greater the risk. You become aware of that [als Fahrer] more and more conscious.”
And after said scene with Montoya in Estoril, Horner had seen enough. He raves to this day: “With what determination he took this curve! His rear tire almost slipped off the rim. That was absolute commitment.”
That’s why he was “honest with myself” and thought: “My heart and brain are not in harmony here, I can’t do it, no matter how much I want it.”
How Horner went from racer to team boss
But because he didn’t want to give up his passion for motorsport, Horner remained true to the scenery, albeit from a different perspective and in a different role – no longer as a driver in the Arden family team, but as its team boss.
Horner made this move right after the 1998 season, in which he had not scored. “And just a week later, young drivers were testing for my team,” he says.
“Back then we had 12 or 13 people and it was about working towards a common goal. Bit by bit I was able to shape the team in such a way that we won back-to-back league titles between 2002 and 2004.”
Tomas Enge, Björn Werdenheim, Townsend Bell, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Robert Doornbos were the Arden drivers in the seasons mentioned, and they all made it into Formula 1 at least as test drivers afterwards.
Montoya: Not everything shown in Formula 1?
Montoya, who had once shown Horner its limits, was also driving there at the time. And Horner still believes: “Montoya has not lived up to expectations in Formula 1. I think he is extremely talented and I think he could have achieved more.”
Because Montoya had “this rock-hard determination” that distinguishes great racing drivers, Horner continued. “I see that determination in Max [Verstappen] and before that I also had it in Sebastian [Vettel] seen. It’s the last little extra they’re willing to give.”
And Horner, then a team boss in the top junior class, wanted more: he planned promotion to Formula 1 with Arden and negotiated with Eddie Jordan about taking over his team. A deal did not materialize, but shortly thereafter Red Bull entered Formula 1 – and brought the then 32-year-old Horner into charge of his project.
With Horner as team boss, Red Bull rose from the backbench to the top team, won a race with Vettel for the first time in 2009 and both world championship titles in Formula 1 from 2010 to 2013. From 2014 and until 2020, Red Bull always occupied a position in the top 4 the constructors’ championship, and finally the world championship again in 2021 and 2022 with Verstappen.