Christian Horner says Dietrich Mateschitz’s mantra of ‘no risk, no fun’ is what pushes Red Bull to take some aggressive steps in F1 races.
Despite their halcyon days between 2010 and 2013, the 2022 win has been Red Bull’s most successful campaign ever where Max Verstappen has had 14 wins with two races to go – he has already beaten Sebastian Vettel’s record of 13 wins.
As it is, they look like taking a 1-2 in the drivers’ championship with Sergio Perez five points clear of Charles Leclerc and Red Bull is now trying to secure that in the remaining two races after having won the constructors’ trophy.
However, it’s also been an emotional season after co-founder Mateschitz passed away last month, on the eve of the US GP where Red Bull won the race in a fitting tribute to the Austrian. It was a fantastic team effort from the factory floor at entry level to Verstappen and Perez at the sharp end.
The glory days of Sebastian Vettel and four titles in a row seem so long ago now, however there are people who were part of the Red Bull story then and are still there. Horner has tributes for them and also for the current lot who are thriving on the mantra of Mateschitz of ‘no risk, no fun’.
“The team can be incredibly proud of it,” said Horner. “There’s a lot of people sitting around the engineering office and the garage, and back at the factory that are all the same people that did that with Sebastian that are doing it again with Max. The DNA of our team is that we’re a race team. We’re a team of racers, we push the boundaries”.
“We’re aggressive in the way that we go racing, and we follow our passion that is to go out there and do our very very best. That’s why yes, there’s risk with the strategy that we took in Mexico with the soft to the medium, maybe they could have run out of tyre. But we are following Dietrich’s mantra of no risk, no fun,” summed up Horner.
The current journey has seen solid support from Honda and Exxon Mobil too as the sport has seen a big influence of power unit and fuel to make the difference against rivals. “Honda again have done a wonderful job,” said Horner. “The power unit has performed well, we weren’t restricted in any way throughout the race”.
“I think our fuel and lubricant partner at ExxonMobil have done a wonderful job this year on that side with this new E10 fuel. From the powertrain side of things, we’re very happy with the performance that we’re getting,” summed up Horner.
Having fought against Ferrari at the start of the year, the latter part of the campaign has seen the team’s nemesis from last season; Mercedes become strong and consistent. In short, they have now done everything except win a race. It is not beyond the realms that they could still be runner up behind Red Bull and not win a race.
At Mexico, they came close, so close to a win and they are gunning for it in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. For Horner and Red Bull, as noted above, one of their prime goals now is to help Perez seal second in the standings. “The Mexican track has played to Mercedes’ strengths, I think Ferrari looked like they were a little bit handicapped,” he said.
“I’m not sure we saw their real pace, so I’m sure they’ll be back. But what was important for Sergio Perez was to score strong points. It put him back into second in the championship, and that’s our target, for him to finish in that position by the end in Abu Dhabi,” summed up Horner.
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