Christian Horner FULL INTERVIEW: Red Bull Exit, Verstappen & F1 Return?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Christian Horner (0:05)

It was not a place that I was enjoying being at, certainly by the time I left.

David Coulthard (0:12)

You realize that the daggers are out.

Naomi Schiff (0:14)

So you were accused of inappropriate behavior.

Christian Horner (0:17)

I wasn't prepared to be defined by this.

David Coulthard (0:23)

You go from that controversial part of your career to something completely uncontroversial. Abu Dhabi 21

Naomi Schiff (0:29)

I know I had never seen a call like that in my 16 years at the time in racing.

Christian Horner (0:36)

Thank God for Nicholas Latifi.

Naomi Schiff (0:39)

Max has re-signed at Red Bull. Did that take you by surprise?

Christian Horner (0:42)

Boring, isn't it? It's all too nice. Toto's having it far too easy.

Naomi Schiff (0:45)

I guess the question everybody's wondering at home is are you coming back? It's Naomi.

David Coulthard (1:03)

It's David.

Naomi Schiff (1:04)

Welcome to Up To Speed. When Christian took over Red Bull at 31, he was the youngest ever team principal in the history of Formula One. Building the team up over 20 years, winning eight Drivers and six Constructors Championships with the team.

Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel and the whole team. Today, he'll be sitting down with us for his first podcast interview since his dismissal from Red Bull, meaning that he no longer has to tow the party line and he'll get to tell us what he really thinks.

Christian Horner (1:33)

Well, look, it's great to be here.

Naomi Schiff (1:34)

Well, we definitely appreciate that. We hope you'll be saying that by the end of this interview and I can assure you. But Christian, I just want to say I've read your book.

It's a wonderful, a great way to explain your story and I think that we learn a lot about you as a person, where you came from, how it all started. What a whirlwind. And I think DC was obviously there for your first year.

David Coulthard (1:55)

You would have been a couple of years or so younger than me, but we would have been watching essentially the same thing.

Christian Horner (2:00)

I remember you in karting. David was driving this, it was a zip car, bright yellow and red.

David Coulthard (2:06)

Horrible looking thing.

Christian Horner (2:07)

But it stood out, it really stood out. And of course he was doing all the winnings.

And this young Scottish kid with the Scottish satire on his helmet or whatever, you go to the fence and watch the people in the class above you racing. I remember watching him at a very young age.

David Coulthard (2:26)

We would have both been watching Formula One, Frank Williams, Eddie Jordan, Ron Dennis.

And then suddenly go towards the beginning of Red Bull racing, you come in, I'm well aware of who you are, what you've done with Ardon. But we were both pretty inexperienced at what it was in terms of like, how do you take a team that's unsuccessful and make it successful? So I found it fascinating in your book that first day of you've sort of been introduced to everybody and there's a lot of people looking back at you thinking, who the hell are you?

Christian Horner (2:57)

You know, when I arrived at Red Bull, the most sort of friendly face to engage with and the person that I wanted to know the most one was David because he'd been at McLaren, he'd been at Williams. And very early on, I remember sitting down with you thinking, what's your impression of this team of where you come from? And it was like, oh man.

Naomi Schiff (3:21)

There was a lot of work to do.

It didn't always feel like it was a stable environment to be in. We will get onto Helmut at some other point, but he was definitely a whisperer of news at times when maybe you didn't expect it. But I think you also mentioned in the book that DC, particularly his podium in Monaco and him as well as Adrian of lobbying to keep you in at a time where you had heard from Helmut that you might not be staying.

David Coulthard (3:45)

Just before we go on to it, I didn't actually know that part of the story until I read through the book. I did recall when there was a meeting with Danny Baja who you mentioned and with Dietrich when they were trying to decide whether you would be staying or Gunther Steiner. And much as we all love Gunther at the time, I remember saying, well, Gunther, I'm not going to say he has really the respect to the factory. You know, Christian has the respect to the factory. So for me, it was absolutely clear the direction was going. But I didn't appreciate that you also were getting it in the... Oh, yeah, yeah.