‘It’s not an option to quit’ – Horner

2015 United States Grand Prix

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says he’s not considering the possibility of pulling the team out of Formula One at the end of the year.

Asked during today’s FIA press conference if quitting F1 was an option Horner said: “For me it’s not an option. We have to find a solution and I’m working very hard to make sure that the team’s on the grid an competitive for next year and beyond.”

However Horner said a decision to pull out could still be made by Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz. “Of course it is,” said Horner, “it’s his team at the end of the day.”

“He recognises the commitment and the skill and the determination that’s within the team and again he wants to find a solution going forward. He’s committed to helping that and behind the scenes obviously he’s involved in numerous discussions to try and facilitate that.”

With Mercedes and Ferrari seemingly unwilling to supply Red Bull with latest-specification hardware, the team is now rumoured to be considering a switch to Honda power for next year. Horner would not be drawn on the claims.

“My position as team principal, as feeling responsibility for the in excess of 800 employees that we have, is to ensure that we’re on the grid and we’re racing and we’re racing competitively next year,” Horner added. “So therefore I’m working hard to try and ensure that we have a solution.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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14 comments on “‘It’s not an option to quit’ – Horner”

  1. There are rumors that whatever deal they are trying to get with Honda is only for 2016-17, and that they have something in the works for 2018. Like covering some of the costs for an Audi entrance.

    I really like RBR and their lineup, it would be great to see them have an (competitive) Audi PU.

  2. I sense another victory for Bernard. The teams can’t live with him, can’t live without him.

    Dietrich with Honda power. Inconceivable.

    1. Not sure if any real victory can be creditted to BE. Leaving might have only ever been hot air assuming DM would concur with Horner, and BE may have known that all along, but merely encouraged the rumours for the sake of the controversy. That said, what is their solution?

      1. There’s no way to be sure @robbie, quite true, but Honda really didn’t want to supply a second team next year and Dietrich was extremely definite about flouncing off if he didn’t get a top – as in nobody has a better – engine.

        So this is a massive climbdown.

        Was the new deal with extra tokens and in-season development part of it? Was Bernie’s threat to sue Red Bull part of it? I saw one estimate of £500m, and Bernie has spent a long lifetime building a reputation of always being willing to pull the trigger.

        So yes we can’t be sure, but for now I’m putting this down to Mr E. Not that I’m glad about it.

  3. I admire Red Bull. Their drivers are great, even the sibling team is doing alright and has a very good and promising line up. The team itself is great, I loved their solutions since 2009, even those bendy wings, huge weird rakes, blown diffusers, passive DRS. Even the intra-team battles.

    But the way they come out on the press… my gosh… we used to have the Horse Whisperer, now we have the Bulls Whiners… not only with Renault now, also with Pirelli midway through 2013.

    It used to be all fun and games at Red Bull before they turned into a sucessful team. Guess sucess goes to the head rather quickly…

  4. the team is now rumoured to be considering a switch to Honda power for next year.

    I think McLaren should welcome this if the rumours are indeed true as it means they will have a team with which they have parity. My guess is Honda must have fixed some of the problems with the current engine, otherwise I just can’t see Red Bull being interested.
    Red Bull didn’t go with the Illmor motor, which they funded. There were announcements that it was better than the Renault engine Red Bull were using, and now they Red Bull seem to have shelved that idea. Mind you, Renault brought their latest engine to America and Red Bull don’t want to use that either.

    1. The team only had a one cylinder test model going @drycrust. If they want to make a full engine out of that, it wouldn’t be ready before 2017-2018. That is exactly why they might try to get “any” deal they can get for 2016-2017

      1. @bascb Thanks, I wasn’t aware that the engine was in the very early prototype stages. I thought Illmor had got one of their “off the shelf” racing engines and then tweaked it with more expensive components so it actually ran as a V6. The impression I got from the media reports was this engine had more power than the current Renault engine. I guess they were able to make some conclusions from this one cylinder prototype, but extrapolating the performance of a 1 cylinder engine with a flywheel up 6 fold looks, at the casual glance, as risky, and then using that as the reasoning to cast Renault aside does seem an odd reaction, mind you this whole episode has been puzzling.
        I did read somewhere that it takes 3 months to make the crankshaft for an F1 engine, meaning Red Bull would have to be putting in their order for an engine to be used in January testing just about now.

        1. yes, it would have taken quite abit of work to get that into the Renault engine and it does indeed take that kind of amounts of time to make engine components. That is also why its not that easy for a team to just go and supply one or even two more teams (although Honda showed they have the capacity to supply 2-3 teams if their enignes don’t go blowing up!)

  5. Quitting is not an option? Strange, thats not what you’ve been saying for the past month

    1. Not sure Horner has been saying it though, has he? I thought it was more DM who is the Red Bull principal than Horner who is the F1 principal that has been making the threats. After all it’s not Horner’s business to make those kinds of huge decisions for huge Red Bull.

      1. Yeah it’s not his decision, so, ‘for me quitting is not an option’ is about as useless as statements come, given he has no choice.

  6. My position as team principal, as feeling responsibility for the in excess of 800 employees that we have

    That’s interesting, I thought the top teams had cut down from these kind of numbers after the financial crisis?

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