Christian Horner reveals area rivals are 'lacking' in after big F1 change

Christian Horner has explained how the dynamic between F1 team principals has changed since he started at Red Bull in 2005.

The 51-year-old first entered the so-called "piranha club" at the start of the Milton Keynes squad's first season in F1, having purchased the team from Jaguar.

At the time, there were still team owners at the helm of their respective operations, something that is significantly less common today.

And Horner highlighted that whilst there were disagreements between the big personalities around the decision-making table, there was also an understanding over needing to put the business side of F1 first.

"When I came into the sport, sitting around the table was Bernie Ecclestone running it with Max Mosley [FIA President]," the Red Bull team principal said to PlanetF1.com.

"You had Ron Dennis running McLaren, Frank Williams at Williams, Jean Todt at Ferrari, and Flavio Briatore running Renault.

"Eddie Jordan was still around when I first started, and they were big personalities and big characters.

"Yes, there were always disagreements, but there was a commonality of agreeing on what was right for the business, and what was right for the sport, because they were all relatively entrepreneurial."

A lack of respect

Liberty Media, a publicly-traded media conglomerate, purchased F1 from Ecclestone in 2017. This facilitated the ensuing boom in popularity for the championship, through the launch of Netflix docu-series Drive to Survive.

Whilst the viewership of F1 has grown to record highs in the contemporary era, Horner feels there have been substantial changes amongst his fellow team bosses, too.

He believes there is a lack of respect between some of the group, something he did not judge to be the case two decades ago.

"Nowadays, you look around the room and, save for a few, it’s largely a bunch of managers, as opposed to perhaps that entrepreneurial spirit that existed previously," the Briton added.

"There were always rivalries; I mean, Jean and Ron never particularly saw eye-to-eye, but there was always respect that, sometimes, I think is a little lacking these days."

Horner has enjoyed intense rivalries in recent years, in particular with Mercedes' Toto Wolff and Zak Brown of McLaren, which has instigated a number of disagreements played out publicly in the media.