Christian Horner: Our strength lies in our independence

Christian Horner, speaking about the reasons that prevented Red Bull from reaching agreements with Porsche, emphasized that the German company was somewhat ahead of events, believing the agreement was close to being reached, i.е. wishful thinking to some extent.

“I think in large organizations the approach to planning is very serious, and I think Porsche was a bit rushed,” said the Red Bull Racing head. – But the parties never signed any mutual obligations, so their assessment of the situation was apparently subjective.

We only had discussions, but we didn’t agree on anything. I won’t go into details, but one of the strengths of our team is its independence. Related to this are our virtues and values; Red Bull is always challenging, our organization is unlike any other. This is also the reason why we are so successful in the sport. We do not want to lose these qualities in any way, as these are the basic principles that underlie our work. It is on them that we now rely, when we are working on the project of our own power plant.

Our strength lies in our independence, in the ability to make decisions quickly, without bureaucracy. We are a racing team, so we can respond quickly, efficiently and everywhere. I think we’ve seen many times that the big automakers aren’t that autonomous in the decision-making process, so it was very important for us to protect what we have, the way we work, because we were convinced that these are pretty correct principles. .

Building an engine department from scratch, what kind of support from a major automaker are we interested in? What can he give us that we don’t have? It seems to us that we are in good shape, we have invited the right specialists and lose nothing to our rivals.

Porsche is a well-known brand, a great company and we wish them all the best for the future. After the departure of Honda from Formula 1, we have chosen a very specific direction of development. On the one hand we are using a homologated engine that will allow us to compete in the championship during this transition period, on the other hand we are creating a new production in Milton Keynes and we have hired some very talented people.

Our state-of-the-art engine department employs more than 300 people and we have already tested the first V6 engine of the 2026 project before the summer holidays. The strategy is to produce both the engine and chassis in-house. Motorists work side by side with the engineers and designers who develop the chassis and that remains unchanged.

We are completely independent of any investor or car manufacturer – we are completely independent. Our project is focused on 2026 and we are preparing for an exciting new chapter in the history of Red Bull Racing.”