58 • The Sunday Times Magazine
The Red Bull chief on life in Formula One’s
fast lane and marriage to Ginger Spice
Christian Horner
A Life in the Day
H
orner, 48, was born in
Leamington Spa,
Warwickshire. He raced karts
from an early age and competed
in Formula 3 and Formula 3000
before retiring at the age of 25 to
enter motorsport management.
He was appointed team principal
of Red Bull Racing in 2005. He
married Geri Halliwell in 2015
and the couple have a son,
Monty, 4. He is stepfather to
Halliwell’s daughter Bluebell, 15,
and he has a daughter, Olivia, 8,
from a previous relationship.
They divide their time between
London and the Cotswolds.I wake up around 7am,
when Geri and I hear
the rumblings of
children in the house. During the
week we live in north London,
so I slip out early for a run on
Hampstead Heath with my
Airedale terrier, Margo. I don’t
take a phone because those 30
minutes give me enough time to
think about the day ahead in
Formula One.
Max [Verstappen] has been
locked in a battle for the drivers’championship with Lewis
Hamilton — it’s the closest we’ve
been since Red Bull won four
consecutive titles from 2010 to- For the first time in years
Mercedes, Hamilton and their
team principal, Toto Wolff, have
been under serious pressure.
The media play Toto and me off
against each other but we are very
different. I grew up in motorsport,
he is a financial guy.
Back home I shower and then
breakfast with Geri, who cooks a
mean scrambled eggs on toast.
I try to share the school run duties.
Fortunately it doesn’t involve a car,
as Geri isn’t a good driver — she
thinks everybody else is wrong.
Then I jump in my car and head
to the Red Bull headquarters in
Milton Keynes. We employ almost
a thousand people now and I can
feel the intensity of this season’s
battle as I walk through the door.
The team love seeing Max fighting
so hard. A lot of drivers would
have crumbled under the pressure.
It’s nonstop meetings all the
day. We spend a lot of time on
engineering issues because Red
Bull will build our own engines
when [its partner] Honda leaves
F1 at the end of the year. It’ll make
us masters of our own destiny.
Lunch is usually soup or a
sandwich from the canteen.
I often eat with Adrian Newey,
who is our chief technical officer.
Max and Sergio [Pérez,
Verstappen’s team-mate] only pop
in once a week to drive on the
simulators, which are incredibly
realistic and help our engineering
team fine tune for race day. Unlike
other sports, F1 doesn’t allow us to
test the actual cars between races.
I travel to 23 grands prix every
year, but this summer we had the
time to take the kids camping in
fields near our farm in the
Cotswolds. It was lovely to stay in
one place for a while. We bought a
big tent and I filled the kids with
marshmallows, so there was no
chance of getting them to sleep.
Our son, Monty, loves tractors
— he may have got that from me
because I keep an old Massey
Ferguson [pictured] in my garage.
During harvest a friend allowed
Monty to spend hours on their
combine harvester, just going up
and down the fields.
There’s not much time for a
hobby but I have started playing
the drums. Luckily for everybody
else I keep them in a barn away
from the main house, so they can’t
hear me destroy a Phil Collins
solo. Ronnie Wood came to see us
over the summer; he is a great
drummer and gave me tips.
My claim to fame is that I have
drummed at Wembley. It was
before a Spice Girls concert and
fortunately there was no crowd.
The band started playing The
Chain by Fleetwood Mac [the F1
theme tune] and I just joined in.
I’ve also taken up horse riding,
despite saying I preferred
horsepower. Geri and the girls
love to ride, so I’ve become a bit of
a happy hacker. It’s a great way to
switch off. Geri is more elegant
than me; I’m all brute force.
I try and leave the office by
6.30pm so I can see the kids before
lights out. I’m usually starving, so
Geri and I might eat a chicken dish
or pasta for supper. By the time
I get to bed I have no problem
sleeping. If there is something
going on at work, that can wake
me up at 3am and I find my head
is full of thoughts. I’ll probably
have a few more nights
like that before the end
of the season n
Interview by Jeremy Taylor JEREMY TAYLORBringing together
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