Ayao Komatsu confirms about Christian Horner approaching Haas since his Red Bull departure, as fellow F1 team bosses chime about their thoughts.
After Red Bull removed Horner from team boss role and replace him with Laurent Mekies, the Brit has since left the organisation on the whole having reached a settlement. This has given opportunity for him to connect with rest of the F1 teams to find a suitable position for himself.
The reports linked him to Cadillac, Alpine and Aston Martin. Apart from that, the stories also floated about Haas and or a 12th F1 team. From among them, Haas’ Komatsu confirmed of approach from Horner. At the same time, Aston Martin’s Andy Cowell didn’t directly admit but hinted on talks.
As did Alpine’s Steve Nielsen, who feels the friendship between Flavio Briatore and Horner, must have played a role in that. But Williams’ James Vowles affirmed of no contact thus far. Cowell, however, noted that Horner has pretty much rung up several F1 teams to ascertain their status.
The Aston Martin chief on Thursday media session left it on Horner to decide his future, but elaborated on it on Friday after discussing with Lawrence Stroll. Here’s what the different F1 team bosses said on the topic –
Komatsu: “Yes it’s true that he approached us. And then one of our guys had an exploratory, let’s say, a talk. Then that’s it. Then nothing’s gone any further. That’s finished. I’ve got nothing more to say on that. Like I said, you guys write about what you want. I’m not fuelling that story.”
Cowell (Thursday): “Christian’s taking some time out, isn’t he, at the moment. He’s probably enjoying time with friends and family. He loves the sport, though, and I wish him well with whatever he ends up doing in the future. We have got a strong team. We’ve got a strong team with Adrian at the helm of the technical organisation and we’re growing and building. I think Christian’s record speaks for itself. He’s a great competitor.
“I guess it’s down to Christian to work out what he wants to do. He might want to walk away from the sport, he might want to do something else in the sport – but that’s down to Christian, isn’t it? I think we’ve got a strong setup and we’re marching forward with that. We’re a relatively young team. We’ve got great facilities. We’re developing the tools. We’ve taken on strong people like Adrian and Enrico [Cardile, chief technical officer]; Jack [Gioacchino] Vino on the aero side. But there are also people internally.
“There’s a guy called Michael Hart that works hour by hour with Adrian on aero development; Giles Wood [simulation and vehicle modelling director] and so on. And with Lawrence’s vision, and with the sponsorship revenues that are coming in, driven by Jeff [Jefferson Slack, marketing and commercial boss], I think we’ve got a pretty strong team. I think I’ll refer back to what I said: we’ve got a plan and we’re marching forward. And I guess Christian needs to work out where he wants to play a part in the future. And who knows what will happen?”
Cowell (Friday): “I guess this popped up yesterday in our media session. I had a chat with Lawrence this morning to find out what he knows. It looks as though Christian’s ringing up pretty much every team owner at the moment, so you can pass the question along. I can clearly say there are no plans for involvement of Christian either in an operational or investment role in the future.”
Nielsen: “As far as I know, no. But Flavio and Christian are old friends, that’s no secret. What they’ve talked about, I don’t know. But everything I see and everything I know, there’s no truth in Christian coming to Alpine—but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. This is Formula 1 after all.
Vowles: “No [he hasn’t approached us]. I think you should always welcome a conversation. There’s no point closing the door. But I think we are very happy with the structure we have, and it’s working. So I don’t see any reason to make any changes to that.”