15 May 2023 , 16:23
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Christian Horner opened up on the "stupid" reason why he ended his racing career before he had the chance to test his skills in Formula 1.
Horner was just 31 years old when he was brought in by Red Bull to lead the former Jaguar F1 team which it had just purchased and rebranded. He landed that role after founding and growing the Arden team which competed and was successful in F3000.
But when he created that team he was still in the midst of his own racing career. Having competed in British Formula 3 and F2, he borrowed cash to move up to F3000 – but it was in 1998, when he was just 25 years old, that he decided against pursuing a top-level driving career any longer.
He told the Financial Times why he decided to take that step at the same age his double champion driver Max Verstappen is now. "I stopped because I got as high as Formula 2 – but I recognised that, as the cars get more powerful, you realise the risk that's involved," Horner explained.
"Having the ability to disconnect your head from your heart is sometimes quite difficult and I wasn't prepared to take the risks. There was a self-preservation that kicked in and said, 'This is stupid', so I knew at that point it was time to stop."
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In an earlier interview with Business Leader, Horner pinpointed the exact moment he came to that realisation. "At the beginning of the 1998 season we were testing at Estoril. There was a very fast right-hander, and a driver called Juan Pablo Montoya came past me into the turn," he said.
Horner as a teenage racer in 1992 (Mirrorpix)"It was a sixth-gear corner, and the angle his car was at, the commitment he had, was one I knew my brain and foot just wouldn't be able to do. I recognised that I wasn't prepared to take that risk. Once you start thinking like that... it was pretty early on in that season that I knew.
"It was then about establishing the team, getting the right engineers and mechanics in place, and then I could focus on running the team. I had to hustle and go and find commercial sponsorship.
"I was booking hotels, I was doing the VAT returns, even cleaning the truck on some occasions – it was a tremendous education from a grassroots level, getting into the nuts and bolts of how a race team operates."