Christian Horner has already told Ferrari their ‘biggest problem’ as he holds talks with iconic team

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Christian Horner has spoken to Ferrari about a potential Formula 1 comeback. And he already knows the main issue he’d look to address if he joined the team.

Horner joining Ferrari would be the managerial equivalent of the Scuderia signing Lewis Hamilton last year. Few team bosses in the sport’s history have attained his celebrity status, or achieved as much success.

What’s more, Ferrari only renewed Fred Vasseur’s contract this summer – after his counterpart had been sacked by Red Bull. It’s unclear whether the two could work together, with Horner keen to be more powerful than a team principal.

Nonetheless, Ferrari chairman John Elkann is attempting to woo Horner. And a report from Sky Sports indicates that he has indeed held ‘exploratory conversations’ with Maranello bosses.

Christian Horner has already criticised Ferrari’s leadership structure

Speaking on the Eff Won with DRS podcast in 2023, Horner said that Ferrari needed to start acting like a ‘race team’ again and less like a ‘national team’. He felt they were overly influenced by the Italian press.

He’s also questioned the effectiveness of the team’s current leadership structure. At the moment, there are ‘too many’ competing voices at the top.

This meant Ferrari couldn’t make decisions, or undo them, as quickly as Red Bull. They last won a world title in 2008, and since then the Bulls have won 14.

Horner, who acknowledges the unique ‘pressure’ of working at Ferrari, would like to change both the structure and the culture if he joined. But the question is whether Elkann would give him that broad a remit.

“I think the biggest problem for Ferrari is that it’s a national team,” Horner said. It needs to get back to being a race team.

“It’s an Italian institution and there’s probably too many people at the top end. Everybody has an input and has a say.

• READ MORE: Jenson Button thinks ‘everyone’ at Ferrari is ‘afraid’ after what he saw at the Singapore Grand Prix

“From the outside looking in, one of our strengths is that we move quickly, we make decisions and we stick to them. And if we make the wrong decision, we change the decision.

“I think, for Ferrari, the newspapers have such an influence on what happens there. So it’s a lot of pressure, being at Ferrari.”

Where Christian Horner’s wife stands on him joining Ferrari

Horner certainly isn’t the first to air these criticisms. Earlier this year, Bernie Collins said Ferrari engineers were too ‘hesitant’ in their decision-making, likely because they had to keep ‘checking up the ladder’.

They remain the most successful team in F1 history and are loyal to the principles that delivered that success, even though they may now be outdated.

Ferrari are now the only team without a base in the UK’s ‘Motorsport Valley’, which may affect their recruitment. Horner would potentially have to uproot his family if he were to move.

But The Daily Mail report that his wife, Geri, would be open to relocating to Italy.

For now, it remains unlikely, with sources in Italy downplaying the ‘seriousness’ of the links to Sky.