| Girlracer interviews Christian Horner |
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He has been managing his team under the full glare of the media spotlight while also dealing with the pressures of fighting for both championships. Red Bull's drivers are currently third and fourth in the drivers' standings, while the team is second in the constructors' championship, and Ferrari are catching up fast. Despite these competing pressures, it is a relaxed man who greets me on Saturday morning in Hockenheim. Sitting in a back room in the Energy Station, Horner begins the interview by asking me how I'm enjoying life in the paddock, the first time an interviewee has ever asked me a question. Given the recent focus on the inner workings of the Red Bull team, I was interested in his views on management, on building a winning team and maintaining good relations in hard times. Girlracer: Could you tell me what it was like making the move up from Arden to Red Bull? I imagine the levels of scrutiny will have been different, with issues at Arden not making headlines in every newspaper. Christian Horner: Yes, and many of the issues are very similar. I built Arden into probably the most successful Formula 3000 team of its era, and obviously the step from having won the Formula 3000 championship for three years in succession, to then step into Formula 1... It's the size more than anything that is different, but all the principles remain the same. All the principles that had served me well at Arden I looked to apply at Red Bull. At Arden I brought in the best engineer, and built a strong group of people that worked collectively as a team, and for three years – with different drivers – the team was very much the team to beat. When I first joined Red Bull Racing, it was clear that there were a lot of very passionate and capable people within the organisation, but it lacked the technical direction and leadership. Adrian [Newey] became an obvious target. We chatted continually throughout the year and it was very easy in the end to come to a deal with him. GR: Would you say that was one of your great coups, getting Adrian Newey? CH: My role is very much getting the right group of people together, making sure that they have the resources, and a clear path to their role. That means protecting them at times, that means getting them all together, that sometimes means banging heads together, and that means making tough decisions sometimes, and that's my role.
GR: Do you think having marquee names like Adrian Newey, Mark Webber, and Sebastian Vettel gives people the impetus to work harder, to achieve more? CH: Absolutely. I think the drivers are a very focal part of the team. Both drivers are hugely popular within the team, they're both nice characters, they're very personable, and we're very fortunate. They're both competitive animals at the end of the day, and as people have seen they push each other very hard. But it's a very healthy situation for the team because ultimately they're getting the best out of each other. Mark is driving better than at any stage of his career and he's really on top of his game, and I think Sebastian's provided that challenge for him and vice versa. I think Sebastian's learned a lot from driving alongside Mark that he didn't get from driving from Sebastian Bourdais or Tonio Liuzzi, for example. While they push each other hard and we do allow them to compete, inevitably sometimes there are going to be some tensions. GR: How do you go about building relationships with your drivers, having an amiable relationship while being the boss in a business relationship? Is that difficult to manage? CH: I think having driven myself it gave me a reasonable background, albeit not at their level. But I think it gives you a relative understanding of the kind of emotions a driver will go through. And different drivers react in different ways. I think the most important thing is to be as straightforward and transparent as you can. Mark is not the kind of guy who needs a lot of love and attention. They're all different animals at the end of the day. When Tonio Liuzzi drove for me in Formula 3000, he was driver that did need his confidence building – he drove off confidence. But the two guys we have are actually very, very straightforward. Despite their age difference they're remarkably similar in many aspects. They're different characters, different personalities, but there are a lot of similarities between them in many ways. In their sheer determination, they are both very driven, They never had a silver spoon, either of them – they've come up the hard way, and they can both be very proud of what they've achieved so far in their careers. GR: But so can the team – this is your sixth season in Formula 1, and you're challenging for both championships for the second year. CH: We haven't quite done 100 grands prix yet, but we're getting there. The team's come an awful long way from where we started. Jaguar was pretty much a joke. We've taken the team from nowhere to being sustained front runner. Last year, we've demonstrated, wasn't just a lucky punch with McLaren and Ferrari just having off years because they'd focused on the previous year, We're right there, we're championship contenders, and hopefully for a long time to come. I think you sometimes forget when you see the heritage of a McLaren or a Ferrari who have been involved – in Ferrari's case for sixty years – we've produced six different cards at the moment! They've produced sixty, probably more, and McLaren likewise – you've only got to look at the collection under the Mercedes grandstand of the different Mercedes-powered McLaren's. I'm very proud of the team, of how far it's come in a short space of time.
GR: The team is known for its fun, relaxed attitude, but racing is a serious business. Meshing those two must be almost as complicated as managing the relationships. CH: Well, there has to be a balance. I think we're as focused and determined as any team in the pitlane, but we're not afraid to express ourselves. After Monaco was great – it was a fantastic win, biggest race on the calendar. To win that race with a 1-2 finish was brilliant. Likewise, winning the British Grand Prix was brilliant. Too much was made of the comments afterwards by Mark. The bottom line was he drove a fantastic race and the team won its local grand prix. It was great to see both drivers letting their hair down with a lot of their team colleagues, doing atrociously bad karaoke versions of different songs, on guitars. It was good, and I think it's important for the team to now and again let off a bit of steam. That's what stands Red Bull out as such a different team, and that's why we're inundated, on a weekly basis, with requests from people wanting to join the team. GR: If you do win one or both of the championships this year, have you got any crazy bets lined up, like your Monaco swimming pool jump? CH: No. I learned the hard way, never make a bet with Martin Brundle and Adrian Newey, because that one came back to bite me in the most publicly embarrassing way possible, thankfully with the aid of a Superman cape to hide my modesty. There's a long way to go in this championship. All the races carry the same points, they've all got equal importance, and we've just got to go out and do the best job we can. And if we do a good enough job, score enough points in both championships, then we'll be top of the table. But there are some very good drivers and very good teams that we're up against. Kate Walker Girlracer magazine Worth Checking - F1 News - Kate Walkers F1 blog
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I even made Mark my Hero of the Week at the Choc Lit Author's site [***]****://blog.choc-lit.co.uk/?p=413[/***]