Red Bull’s team principal feels last week’s French Grand Prix was one of the most boring he has ever been involved in

Simple, straight answers are often rare in Formula One, so the honest and the heartfelt stand out immediately. As the Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, considers another home grand prix in Austria where his drivers will again face a possible bludgeoning from Mercedes, his passion for the sport is unmistakable. The desire to win remains a driving force, as is his emotional attachment to F1, which Horner believes now more than ever desperately needs to make a success of its reinvention in 2021.

He has ridden the rollercoaster with Red Bull since 2005, when they entered the sport. He built the team into the all-conquering force that took four drivers’ and constructors’ championship doubles with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2013. It was some journey for the man who had persuaded his parents that he should put off going to university to pursue a career in racing, then switched to running his own team before Red Bull brought him into F1.

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What followed the highs, however, was a brutal comedown. Since the regulation changes of 2014 that have seen Mercedes dominant, Red Bull have been forced to scrap for every – rare – win. In the team’s motorhome at the circuit that bears their name, nestling in the Styrian mountains, Horner admits it has been an emotional trip. “You win, then you want to defend it, then you want the triple ... it’s almost like a drug,” he says. “Winning is very addictive, that’s why it’s very hard when suddenly – boom – you are not the favourites any more.”

Now 45 years old, Horner called it a day on racing when he was 25 to switch his energies to running his Arden team in F3000.

When Red Bull’s owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, bought Jaguar to enter F1 in 2005, he took on Horner. At 31 he was the sport’s youngest team principal and with grand ambition (and Mateschitz’s largesse), promptly poached the designer Adrian Newey from McLaren. By 2010 they had forged Red Bull into a formidable force. “I am great believer that, if you put your mind to anything, you can achieve anything,” he says. “I did a deal with my parents to take a year out before university at the end of 1992 to try and forge a career in motor sport. I still haven’t gone. I left school at 18 and that was it.

“The driving, by the time I went to Red Bull, seemed an awfully long time behind me, then it was all about trying to build. I wanted to succeed, I wanted to get the team into a winning position. Dietrich showed great faith in a 31-year-old to give me the opportunity to come here and get on with it.”

His team go into this weekend’s race at the Red Bull Ring with Max Verstappen having taken the win for them here last year. It was, however, against the odds. Both Mercedes went out with mechanical failures and the victory perhaps typifies Red Bull’s place since 2014. They have had to scrap hard for just 12 wins, out-powered by Mercedes and in the last two seasons by Ferrari as well.

This year’s switch to Honda engines has worked well but they remain in third place. “Each win has been hard-fought for or opportunistic. We have had to think on our feet and work smartly and adaptably as a team,” says Horner. They did well to take second place in the 2014 and 2016 constructors’ championships but have not been in a title fight for five years.

Horner and Red Bull have repeatedly raised the issues of the lack of competition at the front of the grid, as would be expected from a team no longer occupying that slot. Indeed Mateschitz has threatened to leave the sport. There is no sense now that he will do so but Horner is unequivocal that the 2021 regulations they are currently negotiating must work, not least after the uninspiring fare on offer at the French Grand Prix.

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“The product is fundamentally wrong and it’s the product that needs addressing,” he says. “The FIA and Formula One Management need to take a firm view. The classic indictment is the quality of the last race in France, one of the most boring I can remember being involved in.”

He represents Red Bull, of course, but agrees with Lewis Hamilton’s opinion that the teams need to be removed from the decision-making process. “There is too much vested interest and not enough thinking about what is good for F1,” he says.

Hamilton attended the regulations meeting of the FIA, teams and FOM two weeks ago and was not impressed. “I think he could see some of the frustrations,” says Horner. “I was actually quite aligned with some of his thinking and he was aligned with some of mine. The problem is nobody is thinking about the sport. They are all thinking about their own teams and interests.”

Horner does not believe in dwelling on the past but, as F1 wrestles with its future, he believes there are lessons to be learned from his early days.

“When I started there was Frank Williams, Flavio Briatore, Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan and Peter Sauber round the table. These were entrepreneurial team owners, mavericks in some respects.

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“The meetings were more interesting because you got more honest opinions. Now I say what I believe is right for the sport, which unfortunately people sometimes think is self interest. But what I remember about Ron, Flavio and Frank was that they would think about what was right for F1 even if it would hurt their own team, and sometimes we lack that.”

There is no doubt self-interest in Red Bull’s position but also an earnestness in Horner’s words that is hard to ignore. Success may remain elusive this weekend but the ambition Horner embodies for his team and his sport remains as strong as ever.

They face a tough task. Verstappen, pushing hard in the second session, lost the rear going into the final corner and took a hit in the barriers, ending his run. In the morning Mercedes, still unbeaten this season, were on top with Hamilton quickest from Ferrari’s Vettel in second. In the afternoon Valtteri Bottas had been fastest for Mercedes before he went off at turn five, taking major damage to his car, with Charles Leclerc ultimately heading the timesheets for Ferrari.