If Horner stopped attending, zero would change. The day to day feeding, fueling and working of the car and mechs and drivers do not need micro management at all. F1 teams generally operate on a precision schedule. Horner does nothing technical, designs nothing and overall isnt required to be at a single race for the car to be readied for racing. Lets not think the political turmoil is about to ruin-- Max, his mechs or the routine day to day prep the do. Wins - Maybe some off beat not a great circuit like Monaco, Singapore etc. Beyond that give him the trophy now and decide if they need Checo at all.
So, Red Bull Racing could run without a CEO? I can't imagine a top team with 800 staff running for long without a good boss to make decision, plan the company policy, decide its orientation, oversee the recruiting and coordinate the different services. I have seen enterprises losing their boss, and becoming like headless chicken within days !
These department heads still need an overall boss, or they would start jostling among themselves for control. An organisation needs someone at the top, an authority, someone in charge, responsible for its administration.
Im certain there is a designated backup to Horner, who again is not a technical chief, designer etc - Horner, the bored harrasser of an employee recently said no one is bigger than the team. Wheatley is the sporting director under Horner. As if he couldnt spar with Toto in the press room and tell Max he won again lol!!
Anyone who thinks Horner isnt THE pivotal person in that team is severely underestimating his ability, sorry DF1 i have to disagree this time. Not indispensable but a major part of their success for many years. I would like to see him in charge of SF over Vasseur any day, having said that I beleive Fred may just turn things around. He is much happier in front of the media and get the impression he knows which way the team needs to go. Been proven wrong so far!!
Horner did well... but not everybody enjoys one of the highest (if not the highest) budgets, plus another team that always votes with you and a sponsor that is pouring millions into the sport to make strong harm tactics. Probably others could have done the same, and with the team already rolling I'm pretty sure Red Bull could live without him. The loss of Newey or Waché would be more dramatic.
It's easy to dismiss someone's hard work in building an organisation. RBR could continue, but we can never take away Horner's contribution in bringing it to the fighting force it is now. IMO, Horner was the architect of Red Bull, like Ron Dennis was at McLaren, and Toto Wolf is at Mercedes-AMG.
Not the same. Todt and Vasseur joined the Scuderia that existed well before them. Ron Dennis created Project4 which took over the ailing McLaren team and completely reorganised it. Christian Horner launched Red Bull Racing from the ashes of the failed Jaguar team.
He was, but now the team is already built and running, they next one will have something to work with. For the rest, check the latest years of Ron Dennis and Toto Wolff at their respective teams: nobody is a warranty of success. Anyway, I´ve just realized we´re in the Scuderia Ferrari thread. Why are we talking about Horner, there is already a thread about him and his willie.
You could say the same for TW, he inherited the team from a team developed by Brawn!! Of course its the same.............all are very successful players in the F! game
Unfair ? Not the appropriate word I fear. He built two worlds championships teams which is quite an achievement and earned huge amounts of money by doing this. Congratulations Nevertheless I don’t like him. I will never swallow Singapore 2008.. Felipe either !
I don't understand how people could link the crashgate with Massa's incident. I think it's deflecting Ferrari's responsability for that refueling cock-up. The crew gave Massa the signal to go when the hose was still attached. Briatore had nothing to do in that incident.
No, Massa pit signal failure would have occured at the first refuelling, regardless. It's a typical case of "unsafe release" totally unrelated to a crash during the race.
Disagree. We will never know on this precise point. And I don’t want at all a rewriting concerning the 2008 title’s outcome. What we know for sure is that Briatore cheated in the most disgusting way.
Briatore has been found guilty for the Singapore crashgate, and I accept that. But linking that to a botched refuelling, I don't agree: Massa DNFed because of his pit and nothing else.
Let's look as Massa's argument: - Briatore cheated during the Singapore GP - the fact that Briatore cheated and the GP was not cancelled caused Massa to lose the championship - so the GP should be cancelled, and Massa declared champion. If you imagine Massa's points accepted, and the Singapore GP cancelled, Hamilton could have exactly the same argument: - Briatore cheated during the Singapore GP - the fact that Briatore cheated and the GP was cancelled would cause Hamilton to lose the championship (by giving a free pass to Ferrari for screwing up a pit stop) - so the GP should be restored, and Hamilton declared champion All in all, Massa's claims are pathetic and ridiculous (that's what I believe, anyway).
But Todt did the same thing Dennis and Horner did. He completely cleaned house in both the technical and race operations. That's why I do like Vasseur. He's hands on, is not denial of where the team is and needs to be, and wants only the best people. There is clear momentum behind Ferrari right now. Binotto, Sanchez, Mekies, and Reuda are gone, and more competent people have replaced them. Not only that, but more talent is on the way, along with Hamilton and talent now wanting to follow him to Ferrari. Vasseur has been an objective massive upgrade from Binotto.
