Christian Horner: Life before Red Bull

The Formula 1 paddock is littered with ex-racing drivers.

Some are retired former greats, some had good topline careers without quite hitting such heights, and some never made it to grand prix racing, their careers either stalling in the junior formulas or taking them down other avenues.

It might come as a surprise to some that Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is one of those drivers.

From 1992-98, Horner raced single-seaters before devoting himself full-time to running the Arden team in International F3000.

By his own admission, he wasn't good enough for the top level, but his climb from Formula Renault UK to F3000 behind the wheel played a major part in him becoming what he is today: a world-championship-winning F1 team principal.

Like so many aspiring grand prix drivers, his career in car racing started thanks to the support of his parents.

"I did a deal with my parents when I left school to try a career in motorsport as opposed to going to university," explains Horner. "I took a year out to do that and I still haven't been to university!"

Horner signed up to drive for Manor Motorsport in Formula Renault in 1992. The team was run by John Booth, now a rival F1 team principal at Virgin. In a season that is remembered for Pedro de la Rosa's championship triumph, Horner finished fourth overall, one place behind team-mate Harry Nuttall, and was that season's leading rookie.

"At that point, the goal was to be a grand prix driver when I came out of karting into Formula Renault," says Horner. "I'd won a scholarship, which gave me a racing licence and a few sets of tyres and that was about it.

"Formula Renault was pretty competitive. Jason Plato [now a British Touring Car Championship legend] had raced for Manor the year before and I effectively stepped into his seat. There were some good drivers like Pedro running there. I made progress and managed to qualify on the front row and get a pole position here and there.

His first win came in Formula Renault UK at Pembrey against de la Rosa © LAT

"I also won my first car race at Pembrey in Wales. I passed Pedro on the way to that win, something I still remind him of today!"

Horner describes his time in Formula Renault as the most enjoyable of his driving career.

Booth, who was in charge of trying to turn this newcomer into a racewinner in 1992, recalls him as a raw prospect who developed well.

"He was pretty raw when he came to us," says Booth. "But Pedro was very strong that year and to beat him on merit at Pembrey was good. We got on very well and stayed friends with Christian and his mum and dad ever since.

"To be able to finish in the top six at that level is no disgrace at all. He was a very polite, decent young man and did well for us in 1992."

Horner opted to move up to British Formula 3 for his second campaign, driving a Reynard entered by P1 Motorsport in Class B in 1993 - although he was briefly lumbered with an uncompetitive Van Diemen chassis after a big crash at Silverstone. He won his class six times, but finished second in the points to Jamie Spence, who went on to have a long F3 career.

The following season he graduated to the main class of British F3 with the well-established Fortec Motorsport outfit. This was the season where things started to go wrong.

"The next logical step was the main category in 1994," says Horner. "It was the year that Jan Magnussen was winning almost all of the races. There was a very strong field, with drivers like Dario Franchitti. That was where the momentum started to go out of my driving career."

He finished a lowly 16th in the points, level with a certain Giancarlo Fisichella (who only appeared briefly).Nine of his 10 points came at Pembrey, where he was now something of a specialist, as did his best result of sixth.

While nowadays drivers tend to stay in F3 for only a season or two before moving on, it was much more common for them to take their time climbing the formulas, so Horner opted to keep plugging away in F3.

He joined the legendary Alan Docking Racing - a former and future title-winning team - for the first part of 1995 before switching to the Japanese TOM's team later in the year.

"I'd lost the sponsorship from the previous year, so I really struggled for budget. I had a very bitsy year in 1995. I drove for Alan Docking, who was very good and very patient with me at the beginning of that year. Then I moved to TOM's, replacing Pedro, who went to Japan. I think I had similar results to those he achieved in that car. That was a good experience because they were developing their own car.

F3000 was a hard nut to crack as a driver in 1998... © LAT

"It was good that they gave me the opportunity to drive the car and I did an awful lot of development over the winter on the new car that they were looking at bringing in the following year. I started 1996 with that car, but then I moved into British F2."

The revived British F2 championship used F3000 machinery and Horner joined up with Madgwick International in time for the fifth round of the season at Oulton Park in July 1996.

He picked up a couple of podiums during that part-season, but British F2 was something of a backwater championship. While Horner was already coming to suspect that he was perhaps not cut out for life as a top-lever driver, he showed no lack of ambition by taking the plunge to race in International F3000 with his own Arden team in 1997.

"F3000 was the next logical step," he says. "Up until then, I'd been going okay without setting the world alight.

"I'd worked tremendously hard to raise a budget, which was incredibly difficult, and you could run a single-car entry in F3000.

"Even with the sponsorship I had, I couldn't afford to go to a top team, so I thought I'd be better off buying a car so that at least I would have something to show for it at the end of the year. It was almost an accident to further my career that I ended up involved in running a team."

Results were pretty poor. In 10 attempts, Horner failed to qualify six times and scored only one point, for sixth place in an attritional season finale at Jerez.

It was clear that he wasn't cut out for the big time, although it's worth adding a couple of caveats to put this into context.

While no superstar, Horner was driving for a new team ranged against some of the best outfits outside F1. It was the first year of the one-make F3000 formula, with everyone using the same Lola-Zyteks. The field was also pretty deep, so there were plenty of drivers who missed the cut, including, on two occasions, future Minardi and Williams F1 racer Marc Gene.

This was tough competition and good, competent drivers can be made to look very below-average at this level. It was this year that hammered home to Horner that he didn't have what it takes to be a grand prix driver.

"In the first year in F3000, when I was up against drivers like Juan Pablo Montoya, Tom Kristensen and Ricardo Zonta, I started to realise," says Horner. "I remember there was a pre-season test at Estoril where I followed Montoya through Turns 1 and 2, which used to be very quick corners.

"Seeing how hard he was pushing through there, I knew that I couldn't do that. The brain and right foot were building in a safety net!"

... but there was success as a team boss in 2002; Enge and Wirdheim winning © LAT

Having come to this conclusion, Horner opted to drive for one more year while the Arden team established itself. He started more regularly, making the grid for 10 out of 12 races, although he didn't finish higher than 12th. After the season finale at the Nurburgring, he stepped out of the car and that was that for Christian Horner, racing driver.

"I was nothing special," he says. "I was okay, but the higher the formula I went into the bigger the margin I built in. I was honest enough to say to myself that I've given it a go but as a driver I'm not in the class of the guys that are doing the winning.

"I didn't know any industry other than motorsport. I'd started the Arden team and it was a logical transition to try to turn it into something using the experience that I'd gleaned driving for both good teams and average teams."

Over the next few years, Arden worked its way up the grid.

In 2002 it became a race-winning team with Tomas Enge and Bjorn Wirdheim taking four victories between them. The following two seasons yielded titles for first Wirdheim and then Vitantonio Liuzzi. Heikki Kovalainen then only just missed out on winning the inaugural GP2 title in 2005.

But by then, Horner had already been picked by Red Bull to become team principal of the ex-Jaguar team. The racing experience clearly benefits Horner in his management role.

While he isn't one of those ex-racers who tries to teach those he employs how to drive, even a modest racing career cannot fail to give a little extra insight into a driver's mind.

"It's certainly been helpful," says Horner. "Having been sat in the cockpit driving for good teams and less good teams, it gave me a good perspective of what a driver wants from a team. It gave me invaluable experience, which has been useful in my career in management. Drivers are human beings and understanding the emotions is quite important.

"A lot of engineers have never been behind a wheel and sometimes things can get lost in translation.

"You can put yourself into the scenarios and the emotions that the drivers are going through.

"It's easy to sit on the sidelines and critique drivers. But all of the drivers in F1 have a huge amount of skill.

"When you're sitting in the car looking out, it's very important to feel that you have the support of the whole team around you.

Kovalainen almost took 2005 GP2 crown for Horner-run Arden squad © LAT

"There is a huge amount of pressure, far more than I ever experienced as a driver, but I can try to visualise that from the limited experience that I had.

"Even the amateur driving that Adrian Newey does helps him. He finds it useful to be able to relate to what the drivers are talking about."

But don't mistake Horner for a bore banging on about past glories in racing. He very rarely talks about his racing career now, describing it as seeming to be "an awfully long time ago".

He likens it to university, a time that probably seems just as distant to the average graduate who moved into the professional ranks 15 years ago.

As well as the occasional Goodwood appearance, which he describes as a bit of fun, he did roll back the years and race an Aston Martin at Silverstone earlier this year. But there are no plans to make regular appearances.

"I had the invite from David Richards to partner him in an Aston Martin GT4 race," says Horner. "In order to get out of watching the royal wedding it seemed like a good idea! That competitiveness does come back!

"It was the first time I'd competed properly since stepping out of the car at the Nurburgring at the end of 1998 and it was great.

"But then I asked myself, 'What an earth am I doing?' as I chased someone a couple of inches from their bumper into Copse.

"It was a lot of fun, but my racing days are firmly behind me."