Christian Horner is one of the most successful team principals in F1 history. Given how young he is comparatively, he has gathered huge experiences at this age. However, he never thought to be in a managerial role until he experienced the defining moment that ended his F1 ambitions even before his racing career started.

Talking about this during an interview with High Performance, Horner once shared, “I suppose the defining moment for me was, even before the season had started at the beginning of 1998 was when I drove out the pit lane in Portugal and it used to be a really high-speed turn… and Juan Pablo Montoya came past me.”

“I could just see the angle that his car was at, the commitment that he had you know, the rim he is trying to push its way through the tire and he just kept this thing absolutely planted, and I just knew I thought I can’t do that,” further asserted the Red Bull honcho.

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The 49-year-old executive finally concluded with, “I just knew that I haven’t got the ability to disconnect the risk versus the reward. Seeing his commitment there was an eye-opener to me to think, okay, you’re not capable of doing that. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about something else.”

Christian Horner before his Red Bull days

Long before Christian Horner took up the role as an F1 team principal or manager, he used to be a racing driver. As a talented, young individual, Horner rose through the ranks to Formula 3000 in the late 1990s.

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After some nearly successful attempts, the Briton couldn’t manage the F1 breakthrough. As he stated his defining moment of why he left driving to have an alternative career, the Red Bull boss is hugely successful today.

At the age of 25, Horner founded the Arden International Race Team, which began to perform brilliantly. Soon after, the team raked the drivers as well as constructors’ championships in 2003 and 2004. This grabbed the attention of the late Dietrich Mateschitz and, as a result, he appointed Horner as the head of the newly formed Red Bull team in 2005.

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From there on, he took the charge of the Austrian team, and the rest is history. Red Bull Racing has recently picked up both driver’s and Constructors’ Championships in 2022, making it their fifth team title and sixth driver’s championship win.