Christian Horner's FAILED Career As A Racing Driver

so if I were to drop the name Christian Horner on you how would you all react nope yeah thought so not the most popular kid in the playground no doubt but one can't deny the success that he's had and formula one as a team principal this guy does know how to lead a team and we all had to commend him for what he's done in the sport even if done through gritted teeth what's giving you the sensation of eating rat poison but while his success has certainly been present on the managerial side of motor racing it wasn't quite a successful on the other side of the pit wall yes Christian Horner used to be a racing driver so how did it all go wrong and how did It ultimately lead to him being so successful back in the early 1990s little Christian Horner liked racing cars and he figured that he'd like to race the racing cars too he begged and pleaded with his parents to buy him a go-kart which eventually they did it was initially intended for them to use on the fields of their home but when British Reign intervened and turned the fields into a Ware he was taken to a local go-kart track which was based on an Airfield and thus began the journey for Christian Horner's racing career he kept on racing cars for a while although what exactly he achieved in the motorized 10 trees I'm not so certain what is certain however was what happened in 1991 back in those days Renault with dishing out scholarships to promising young drivers who were looking to break through the ranks and into the motor racing scene Horner tried out won the scholarship and was rewarded with a free engine not a fully paid season in racing just an engine well every little helps it was an engine that he would use to race in the British formula Renault series driving with Mana he was teammates with Harry Nuttall shut up by the end of the championship Horner had finished fourth in the standings behind his teammate in a long way away from a virtual championship winner and future F1 driver Pedro De la Rosa the high points well Horner did win his first round at pembury a place where Horner seemed to function properly whenever behind the wheel so for a first year in Motor Racing you gotta give him this credit for 1993 Horner made the step up into British Formula 3 but he wouldn't be concerning himself with the top level talent that lay there instead Horner would race in the class B category competition isn't as fierce but it did allow for an easier entry into the category I think in the second round he took the class B win and was leading the championship he celebrated this momentous start in the next round by spinning off into the sandbox on the formation lab he'd fire back through for a win in the next round at Donnington and would win in the last three rounds that he did compete that year so you'd imagine then that I'm about to say that this was a good year for him well we'll pump the brakes there's Sunshine while it certainly wasn't bad he was thoroughly outperformed by Jamie Spence who won the class B Championship quite convincing wanna finish second but hey all a learning experience in 1994 he would make his return to the British Formula 3 Series but this time in the main game driving with Fortec Motorsports he wasn't going to be in the best of the best in terms of Machinery not that it really matters given young Magnuson paddled everyone that year but at least he could be assured that his car wouldn't blow up on him every time he looked at the brake pedal as is always the case the best way to truly measure a driver's performance is to see how they did against their teammates in this case Hornet's teammate was Frenchman Jeremy Dufour don't worry I've never heard of him either but rest assured this dude could drive he got the most fastest laps of any driver that year acquired a handful of podiums and finished seventh in the driver's standings right right I hear you say but how did our boy do that year well he didn't do quite as well Dufour got onto the podium four times Hornet didn't even manage to get into the points that many times not quite sure what the deficit was so picked though maybe he needed to change his car but hey fun fact about that season someone else who's racing on that grid Zac Brown it appears that to seek the next influential F1 team principle have a look into the deep mid of the British F3 Championship 1995. he remained in British F3 not totally uncommon back in those days but generally about this time you would expect to be winning some races or at least get onto the podium or at least get a sniff of it but alas the only time this year the Horner saw the podium was when he passed one on the way to the portaloo his game of jumping from Team to team hit its stride this year completing the first half of the season with Ellen docking racing before switching to Toms in the second half this is all part of the problem of a notable absence of money and the thing is his results did improve sort of his qualifying was awful awful awful awful to a point where even on some of the wider shots of coverage you couldn't see his car nonetheless there was a faint sliver of hope that he was just beginning to turn the tide that's not to say that he was all of a sudden a ball against Senna but at least he was finishing in the points some of the time rather than none of the time and reasonably he thought shorts as would carry him in good stead heading into 1996 where despite having now languished in their championship for a fourth year good results would give him more exposure more trophies and therefore more yes unfortunately for him this Grand Master Plan didn't work because after six rounds he scored nothing which is an unhelpful amount in an attempt to win the championship there's only real highlight of the Year being part of the start line accident at Donington and even then he was so far back the cameras were barely able to capture his car and he wasn't even the one rolling so yeah by this stage he knew he couldn't remain in Formula Three for much longer he had two choices either admit defeat and go home or else do what he did and say ah screw it let's go For Broke he made the step up to the British Formula 2 championship for the second half of the season the results fifth place and the overall championship and he backed up the result with some podiums podiums impressive if you slow death that in some rounds that year there were only five drivers entered of course this was all good prep work for the big series of the time the one that he was aiming for Formula 3000 the step below formula one but his particular path was of an unconventional nature he wasn't going to tag onto a team pay his way and arrive and drive the season oh no no now he was gonna sit up his own team so he sold everything got as big of a loan as he could muster from the banks from his family from CD lone sharks based in a whole fish and chip shop whatever he could in order to acquire a chassis two leased engines a race engineer and a Norfolk shed two houses Karen he also bought a trailer from a dude in Austria who himself had a Formula 3000 team they had no money to spare so if Horner had a shunt they didn't have much hope of showing up at the next round with a complete car as a result he played it safe kept to his limits tried to keep his nose clean problem is this did not really translate to results in the first round at Silverstone he was way off the pace compared to well anybody so that wasn't exactly ideal but straight up not qualifying for the next five rounds wasn't much better either he only qualified for a further three races that year including the season finale at herath where surprise surprise he scored his first ever points in the category and was running some decent pace too outside of the cockpit Horner was learning a great deal about what makes a racing team work learning the fundamentals of race team management and at the same time was helping build the team that he co-founded with his father Arden International and for 1998 he would bring in another driver income Mulligans as it would turn out mullikins was a street ahead of Hornet on pure Pace while Mulligans at one point was fighting for the lead of the championship Horner wasn't doing that and then there was what happened in pre-season testing whilst Horner was exiting the pits at it's drill he saw one Pablo Montoya whiz by and hurled his car into the first corner with such commitment and guile that it made Horner say I can't do that like I can't do that he knew he was nothing special but he realized then and there that he lacked pretty much everything that it took to match the top drivers of the time and therefore knew that his time as a professional racing driver was over he made the call to retire at the end of the season but it wasn't all a complete waste he saw something in running a racing team potential to help it blossom into a viable business not prophets and motor racing nah surely not well heading into 1999 Horner's first year outside of the cockpit David Richards from prodrive came knocking and told him that there was a driver looking for a race seat for the season in the form of a Russian Billionaire's son how original Victor masloff was the name winning was not his game and part of that deal was selling half of the Arden team to prodrive but being the son of the owner of a Russian oil Empire and garage space at one of Britain's best engineering firms Horner just couldn't resist and really could you blame him Horner took the deal renamed the team to Argentine Russia realized pretty soon that it was all horse manure and decided to take back control of Arden heading into 2000. maslov was gone after three seasons having never come close to points in his time there but for Arden International strides were being made they already had the likes of bark horses and Darren Manning driving for them both very good very accomplished of the 2002 he would hire Thomas NK and Beyond third time and now Arden was starting to win stuff they were the team champions that year and for 2003 they would retain the team championship whilst also winning the drivers Championship with vertim even if he did commit this war crime in Monaco 2004 third year in a row Arden with the team champions and their driver Tony oliotsi was the driver Champion as well actually funny story about The Odyssey at that time he was being backed by Red Bull and being mentored by an Austrian the same Austrian Who Sold Horner his old trailer the trailer used to help build the foundations of his team and become the PowerHouse that it did that Austrian was Dr Hellman Marco having done everything there is to do in Formula 3000 Horner wonders whether he could make that step up to Formula One after all at least on as a team principal or something at least once Horner lit slipped to Marco that these were his Ambitions he mentioned huh funny you say that because Red Bull kind of wanted something more within the Realms of Formula One they already were sponsoring salba who finally enough were also sponsored at the time by Petronas amazing how things change right but Red Bull wanted something more toward the end of 2004 there were two F1 teams that were being put up for sale one of them was Jordan although the only tangible assets included half a million could worth of carbon fiber and half a case of Guinness so this didn't interest them the other team though was Jaguar who the Ford Motor Company totally butchered in the few years that they had after having bought the team and with Marco and Madison's getting migraines from the management that carried over from Jaguar they drafted in Christian Horner as team principal of Red Bull starting from the team's first season in 2005 and obviously like they say the rest was history so what was the point of this video well that horde's failure as a racing driver was ultimately what led him to be so successful as a team principal in Formula One yes he drowned horrifically behind the wheel but it was his experiences in competing against the best as well as knowing first hand what drivers will experience what makes them tick how best to extract the performance out of them undeniably played a role yeah she ain't the most popular kid in the playground but he doesn't need to be and really who cares he's achieved a hell of a lot as the captain of Red Bull's ship and it likely wouldn't have happened had he not tried to achieve the exact same thing from the other side of the pit wall foreign [Music]

Channel: Josh Revell

Views: 136,279

Keywords: f1, formula 1, christian horner, red bull, red bull racing, christian horner racing, christian horner f3, christian horner f3000, f3000, christian horner arden

Id: 9gFSb9Z7xZs

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2023