Looking to make step forward - Horner
As the Red Bull Racing Team unveiled its 2008 contender, the RB4 by the hand of Adrian Newey, Team Principal, Christian Horner, takes a walk down 'memory lane' and he gives his thoughts on the new car.
Red Bull Racing’s Team Principal was born in Royal Leamington Spa and was soon packed off to junior school where he excelled in the choir and as captain of the ‘Under 9½’ football team. Why the half? We will never know, but at the age of 12 (or was it 12½?) he discovered karts. Fed up with watching him destroy the family garden, his parents took him to a kart track where his love of motor sport began. “From that moment on, I was only a part-time student,” confesses Christian. In fact, Horner is still waiting to go to university, as he promised to continue his studies if a racing career did not work out. It looks as though the groves of Academe will have to wait.
David Coulthard was already a star name in karting when young Horner was starting out. “I seem to remember ads for karts that said, ‘You too can race the same kart as David Coulthard,’” recalls Horner. “My contemporaries were Fisichella, Trulli, Magnussen and Franchitti.” He finished third in the British Championship in 1990 before winning a Formula Renault scholarship for 1991. “I remember winning a race at the world-famous Pembrey circuit in Wales, beating Pedro de la Rosa into second place. From there I moved up to Formula 3, convinced I was going to be a Grand Prix driver.” Horner took five wins with the Lotus junior team when his and DC’s paths crossed yet again, as they shared a sponsor who made particularly tasteful men’s ‘slacks’.
A move to F3000 was next on the cards. Horner set up his own squad and, with a bare-bones team, realised just how hard it was to both drive and manage. “So I decided to stop driving and focus on the Arden team,” explains Horner, who hung up his helmet after a race at the Nürburgring in 1998. Arden began to make its mark, with Tomas Enge and Bjorn Wirdheim driving. In fact, Enge took the title in 2002, only to have it removed for failing a drugs test. Wirdheim won the Championship in 2003, while Tonio Liuzzi took the title in 2004 (nine poles and seven wins) and team-mate Robert Doornbos won at Spa. “I had achieved everything I could in F3000,” concludes Horner. “It was time to move on. Formula One had always been my goal and so my discussions started with Red Bull.” To trot out the standard cliché: the rest is history.
“Last year was a year of evolution, with the first Adrian Newey designed car,” says Horner. “This year is the first in the team’s history that we have continuity in all key elements: staff, drivers and engine partner. We go into this season on the back of a year in which our performance improved and there is a real sense that we are operating efficiently as a team, having come a long way since Red Bull’s initial investment back in 2005. Prospects for 2008 are encouraging and we are looking to make a step forward from where we finished last year. It is an extremely competitive field and the new challenge of running a common ECU with no driver aids will hopefully play into the hands of David and Mark, who certainly enjoyed the experience in testing of running without traction control and engine braking.
“There has been a strategic investment in the facilities at Milton Keynes, doubling the capacity of our manufacturing facility, which I believe puts us on a par with any team in Formula One. The infrastructure of the team has grown and we now have the right tools and equipment in place. And with the key recruitment of Geoff Willis as Technical Director last summer, we are now working as a cohesive group.”
