Christian Horner has explained that he first met Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko prior to starting his Arden team in Formula 3000. The pair have endured huge success in F1 and Horner said that Marko has always been a straightforward person and was very helpful to Horner when he needed buy a trailer for his Arden squad. "When I first started this team, I needed to buy a trailer," Horner told the High Performance Podcast. "It turned out that this Austrian fellow was selling a trailer so I went to Graz, saw this trailer and met Helmut, I hadn't got a clue who he was but he seemed like a pretty straightforward kind of guy, I agree the price and he said he would deliver it in a week's time but it had to be money up front. "I went home, and I borrowed the money from the bank. My father was away at the time and I sent basically all the money that I could conjure up to pay for this trailer. "My father came back from this trip wherever he went and I said, 'I've bought a trailer'. He said, 'where is it?' I said 'it's in Austria' and he went 'okay, well when are you going to pay for it.' I said 'I've paid for it'. "My father said 'what you've bought a trailer off a bloke in Austria you've just met? Are you stupid?' The trailer then arrived and that was my first interaction with Helmut." Horner became Red Bull team principal in 2005 whilst Marko has been Red Bull's advisor during that same period. It was Marko who recommended Horner to Red Bull co-founder and owner Dietrich Mateschitz. "Helmut recommended me to Dietrich and Dietrich has always been tremendously good at giving youth an opportunity," said Horner. "You've seen it with the junior program, across the football academies and all the sports that Red Bull are in. "He was prepared to take a risk and at 31 years of age, basically they gave me the keys and said get on with it."
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