IT’S BACK!

22 SPORT THURSDAY 2 MARCH 2017
CITYAM.COM
INTERVIEW
F1 owners must
grab the bull
by the horns
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Red Bull boss Christian Horner
tells Julian Harris the sport needs a shakeup to survive
TURNING into the Tilbrook
business park on the outskirts
of Milton Keynes, one
feels a million miles from
the glamour and pizzazz of
Formula One – yet here lies the unassuming
headquarters of Red Bull Racing,
the team led by Christian Horner
since its inception nearly 13 years ago.
An opulent trophy wall greets visitors,
glimmering silverware reflecting
the spirit of a sport that Red Bull
dominated between 2010 and 2013.
The wall aside, there is little pomp or
ceremony. Globally-renowned design
chief Adrian Newey ambles through
the lobby, casually exchanging
pleasantries with the receptionists. A
few minutes later Horner, equally
relaxed, strolls out to say hello.
A former racing driver himself,
Horner clearly feels at home among
the Red Bull family. “One of the key
reasons behind our success here has
been clear stability and you can see
we have a very low turnover of staff,”
he says, speaking just weeks ahead of
the start of a new season.
“I came to Red Bull 13 years ago and
it’s fantastic because [Red Bull cofounder]
Dietrich Mateschitz and
[team adviser] Helmut Marko have
given me the freedom to get on and
build and run the team. They’ve been
tremendously supportive in the good
times and bad, of assembling a
strong group and having stability –
and in any sport you need that.”
Asked if he might ever move to a
rival F1 team, the response is
straightforward – “I can’t envisage
that.”
FAMILY MAN
A high-profile marriage to former
Spice Girl Geri Halliwell – who recently
gave birth to their son – has not
altered Horner’s ambition or commitment
to racing.
“I’m not retiring just because I
became a father!” he scoffs.
“My commitment is absolutely to
the team as long as the team’s commitment
is to Formula One. [We] have
a commitment up until the end of
2020, but it goes beyond that – I love
to compete, I love competing with this
team. Having been involved here from
the beginning, having put a group of
people together, I feel responsible for
them. And it’s exciting; I’m just as
excited about going to the first grand
prix in Melbourne now as I was 13
years ago.”
Red Bull’s future in F1 has been cast
into doubt during recent seasons, following
the introduction of complex
and expensive hybrid engines – a regulation
change that ended the team’s
consecutive run of championship
victories and ushered in a new era of
domination by Mercedes. Mateschitz,
the firm’s motorsport-loving owner,
has issued sporadic threats, insisting
he will withdraw from F1 if it does not
become more competitive.
Engine technology aside, what else
will it take to keep the team in place?
“We need to see audiences grow, we
need to see a clearly defined digital
strategy, engagement through social
channels, and a broader reach, a growing
fanbase – they’re all key factors to
Red Bull. Red Bull will pay a very keen
watching brief to see what is going to
be the future direction of the sport.”
NEW OWNER, NEW ERA
It sounds like an ultimatum, but
Horner is optimistic about the future
under new owners Liberty Media. The
US giant – which holds stakes in Time
Warner, Live Nation, and Viacom –
completed a £6.4bn takeover of F1
from private equity firm CVC during
the current off-season.
“The refreshing thing about the new
owners is they are ultimately a media
company, they’re promoters, they are
interested in generating great content
– because that’s how they
drive their viewerships
and therefore revenue
streams,” he says.
“I think that’s encouraging.
What Liberty are
very, very good at –
they talk about making
events... putting on a
great show so that
there’s fan engagement
from the moment they
arrive [to] the moment
they leave, [putting on
a] great spectacle,
embracing the local
culture and environment
et cetera –
and if we can
achieve that I think it
would be phenomenal.”
The Red Bull chief’s ideas for F1 are
simple and unsurprising. He is blunt
about what he sees as the sport’s failings
in recent years: primarily the introduction
of complicated technology
that has seen costs rocket and led to
Mercedes winning the last three con-
Red Bull recently unveiled the car it will
use for its 13th season in Formula One. It
will be driven by teenage sensation Max
Verstappen and his Australian teammate
Daniel Ricciardo
structors’ world titles by nearly 300
points each season.
“Formula One over the last few years
has in many ways embraced too much
technology which has zero relevance
to the fan in the grandstand, and
we’ve damaged the DNA of the sport,”
Horner says, echoing the sentiment of
many F1-fanatics by complaining
about the quieter new engines.
“We need to go back to more simple
engines, cheaper engines, louder,
bring back the noise. Bring back the
shriek and the thrill of hearing
a Formula One engine
operate, and we need to
make sure the drivers are
the stars, that the best
driver ultimately wins.”
He cites the wheel-towheel
racing of MotoGP
as an example to F1,
despite the bikes being
around 20 seconds a lap
slower.
“The key elements are
the noise, because that
gives the sensation of
speed, and it’s the
quality of the racing.
People want to see,”
– he pauses – “they
don’t want anybody to
get hurt, but they want to see
the odd accident, they want to see
drivers pushing to the limit, making
mistakes.”
A back-to-basics approach would
have the dual benefits of helping
smaller teams on tight budgets, while
also making the spectacle more
dramatic; F1 needs to “put on a better
show”, he says.
“I think the regulations as they are,
that necessitate close to 900 people in
the top teams... [working] on just one
chassis is barmy – it’s nuts, it’s too
much.”
WILD GOOSE CHASE
The Red Bull boss does not hold back,
describing the regulatory changes as
a “wild goose chase on irrelevant technology”.
The argument that F1 should
lead the way in developing clean, futuristic
engines is dismissed out of
hand; technological developments of
recent seasons are “fiercely protected
so nobody ever really finds out about
[them] all, or the automotive industry
never benefit from [them] – but [they]
probably detract from close wheel to
wheel racing,” he says, insisting that
Formula E should be embraced as a
way of encouraging greener racing
cars, instead of F1.
F1’s remit is different – it must
compete more strongly for people’s
attention, Horner argues, in a world
in which consumers have a rapidly
increasingly choice in entertainment
at their fingertips.
“You’ve got to move with the times
and sometimes you’ve got to step back
a little bit [and say] ‘OK perhaps we’ve
gone down a wrong path here – let’s
bring it back to the absolute fundamental
elements of what is Formula
One’.”
The Liberty takeover prompted a dramatic
change at the top of F1, with
decades-long chief Bernie Ecclestone