“My Dad Was a Mechanic”: Christian Horner Reveals When His Dad Had to Leave Serving Him After a Huge Mistake

Long before becoming one of the most successful F1 team principals of all time, Christian Horner used to ply his trade in karting. In the latest episode of the Eff Won with DRS podcast, Horner revealed how his father used to be on his team until a major mistake led them to split.

Talking about his childhood, Horner revealed that he was obsessed with karting. His family was also quite supportive of it and during the weekends, they would make a trip to the racing tracks to participate in karting races.

Horner said, “My dad was a mechanic. He was the mechanic initially until I was in the lead of a race and he hadn’t done the engine clamps up properly and the engine fell off when i was in the lead.”

However, the split happened to be quite cordial because by then, Horner had been noticed by some other karting teams and they offered to take him up as their driver. He said, “After that point, I had done well enough that couple of teams said: Why don’t you come drive for us?”

Following his karting stint, Horner moved up to racing single-seater cars and participated in various classes including the British F3 and the Formula 3000. He put in some quite decent performances but soon realized that racing cars may not be his cup of tea.

Christian Horner realized that racing cars was not for him

Horner gave up racing at the young age of 25 and moved on to owning and managing his own racing team. He first made this decision during a testing session in 1998 when he saw Juan Pablo Montoya taking a fast corner with full commitment.

Horner knew it there and then that he wasn’t ready to take that kind of a risk, and thought it would be better for him to ply his trade elsewhere. He moved on to managing the Arden team that he had founded back in 1997. Finally, in 2005, he got his big break as he stepped up to F1 as the team principal of the newly formed Red Bull Racing team.

Since then, Horner has come a long way, he has managed to win six constructor’s championships with his team and his drivers have won seven titles so far. With Red Bull entering their second phase of domination, he still has quite a few more titles to come his way.