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Before his exit from Red Bull after 20 years in charge of the F1 team, Christian Horner achieved everything that the sport has to offer for a team principal, but David Coulthard thinks the 52-year-old still has more that he wants to accomplish before walking away from the paddock for good.
Ever since the bombshell regarding Christian Horner’s Red Bull departure dropped, rumours about a return to Formula 1 for one of the sport’s most successful team principals ever have been rampant.
The most likely option that’s emerged has linked Horner with purchasing a stake in the Alpine F1 team, with current investors, Otra Capital, reportedly looking to offload their shares in the racing outfit.
The deal is still awaiting authorisation from Alpine’s parent company, Renault, with McLaren CEO Zak Brown hoping for the deal to go through so his former foe can reclaim his spot inside the F1 paddock again.
Of course, Horner’s exit wasn’t on his own terms, but the recent news regarding a return begs the question of why someone so successful would want to start all over again with a team that is currently occupying the midfield spots on the grid.
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David Coulthard pinpoints Christian Horner’s ‘hunger’ for more success as the drive behind his F1 return
In a discussion over the reasoning for Horner’s departure from Red Bull on the Up to Speed podcast, David Coulthard offered his thoughts on why the 52-year-old is so adamant about returning to the F1 paddock.
The 13-time Grand Prix winner said, “There are so many leads. But yeah, look, there’s no question it tainted his amazing record over 20 years with Red Bull Racing, which leads me to the second part of that question, which was, ‘Will we see him back in F1?’ I believe we will.
“I think the hunger to prove that it wasn’t just that Red Bull journey that was his one success in Formula 1, in the same way that Flavio came back. He’d been around in the sport where Michael Schumacher was winning at Benetton.
“So there’s something addictive about this sport. I think we all get that, and we’re all at different phases of our careers, but once you’ve got the bug for F1, it’s something that is very difficult to let go.”
Having spent the latter stages of his career as a driver at an infant Red Bull Racing outfit, Coulthard was one of the first F1 figures to pay tribute to Horner following his sacking.
The 54-year-old put it simply, saying that the accolades Horner had achieved during his time in Milton Keynes speak for themselves, due to him being the overseer of it all.
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Christian Horner has received some credit for Red Bull’s impressive start to the new regulations
One of the reasons that had been speculated to be a leading factor in Red Bull’s top brass’ decision to fire Horner was linked to the new Red Bull-Ford power unit being in a sub-optimal position ahead of the new ruleset.
However, Red Bull’s pre-season testing programme has indicated that they are in a much better position than many thought they were.
In fact, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert have praised RBPT’s creation, raving about how impressive it is for them to remain competitive despite it being the team’s first real foray into power unit development.
Former Ferrari F1 driver Ivan Capelli thinks Horner deserves all the credit for Red Bull’s ingenuity, given the fact that he was the man who made the decision to take on the mammoth task, and oversaw a lot of the initial R&D.
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