Christian Horner was happy with the gesture that F1 wanted to undertake involving all the Red Bull teams/drivers during the US GP.
The F1 fraternity were shocked with the news of the death of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz over the US GP weekend at Circuit of the Americas as they came together to celebrate the life of the Austrian in a slightly different way.
The Saturday went as normally while Sunday saw most of the Red Bull team personnel in jeans in honour of Matsechitz and the pre-grid formation saw both Horner and Franz Tost at the front alongside Dr. Helmut Marko and Adrian Newey to pay their respect.
The driver list saw both the Red Bull pair Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez along with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda. In addition, F1 gave space to former Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo, Alexander Albon, Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel too.
“After the events of this weekend, it’s been a hugely emotional weekend, when we learned to the news of Dietrich’s passing it was very emotional for the whole team, because he’s such a giant of a man and he’s done so much, not just for Red Bull Racing, but for Formula 1,” said Horner to media.
“We felt determined to go out and really honour him in a way that would make him proud. So there was no black armbands, there was no minute’s silence, there was the embodiment of celebrating him. And the best way to do that, obviously, was the performance on circuit. So after eight long years, we’ve never stopped believing, we’ve never stopped picking ourselves up, brushing ourselves down and never lost sight of what our goals and objectives are, which were to get back onto the top of both World Championships.
“And we’ve done that, and that is testimony to the hard work of all of our staff, the contribution of all of our partners, our suppliers. And just the spirit that he embodied, that runs throughout all of Red Bull that has enabled us to achieve what many people would have thought would be impossible.
“The pre-grid formation was something that Formula 1 have been very gracious, and they wanted to do something for the two teams. But I felt that he touched so many drivers that it was right to have them all up there. Because, you know, without him, they may not have been there,” summed up Horner, as he put across that Matsechitz would have been proud seeing them from heavens winning the title and stopping Mercedes finally.
“I think Dietrich would have quite enjoyed that race from above to see us overtaking Mercedes with five or six laps to go and win the constructors World Championship, I think he would have been very proud about that race. He set that vision, and he was he was involved right up until last week.
“He had the vision for and endorsed the plan for Red Bull power trains, to set the team up for the future, for the long term. And the commitment that he’s shown to that, and what he’s enabled us to create in Milton Keynes puts Red Bull Racing in a very strong position for many, many years to come,” summed up Horner.
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