The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Christian Horner: The Truth Behind Red Bull Racing's Success!

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Christian Horner is the team principal of Red Bull Formula 1 racing team, which now officially holds the world title in drivers and constructors championships. An iconoclast and a one-off, he was the youngest team principal of a F1 racing team when he took over, nearly 20 years ago. He’s still the youngest team principal today. But his path to the top of the podium was not an easy one. Initially turning to team management in a desperate bid to stay in the sport when his driving career was flagging, for a while he was the sole driver, the lead engineer, the marketing and managing director of a veritable racing one man band. Now running an organisation of over 1200 people, Christian is one of the biggest characters on Formula One: Drive to Survive, the Netflix smash hit that has brought an entire new generation of fans into the sport, and the first generation to see for the first time the stresses and stakes of running a team that pushes people and machines to the edge of what’s possible, every single week. Follow Christian:  Instagram - https://bit.ly/3EDNyRG Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States

and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. It's a mental game. And when you see your counterpart

smashing up headphones and ranting at cameras, you know that you've got to. Christian Horner, the team boss of the world championship winning team, Red Bull Racing. You came into Red Bull when it wasn't doing great. When I came into the sport, I was the youngest team principal in Formula 1. I still am to this day, ironically, and I don't have any formal qualifications bar a couple of A-levels. I wanted to make sure that we were the team on the upward graft and think, OK, how can we turn shit into fertilizer? You can lose championships, as we've seen,

in seconds. It felt like it was slipping away and then suddenly it was insane. If somebody came up with a script and said that's the way this season's going to pan out, nobody would have believed it. All that press scrutiny. Formula One is a very glamorous world from the outside looking in.

It can be a lonely place at times. Have you ever had moments of anxiety? Yeah. It sort of crept up on me without, you know, recognising it. Same. And it's just your body telling you that, you know, there's a lot going on here. And for me, you know, I've had enough. When you look at your competition, which has been Mercedes.

Yes. Why do you think your team will win? I think that... Without further ado, I'm Stephen Butler, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Christian, there's a slight pun, I guess, to this opening question, but as I look back into your early years, and as you look back in hindsight, and sort of self-assess, what drives you? What drives me? I'm naturally a competitive person. And, you know, I've always, you know, enjoyed competition. I've always enjoyed working, you know, within a team of people and winning.

You know, winning, there's just no feeling like it. And, you know, whether it's achieving a chequered flag first or sealing a deal to get on a car, you know, that's always what's driven me has always been about the competition. In our earliest years, I think, you know, this psychology shows that we're formed most definitively by the things that happen, the context we're growing up in, older brothers, you know, the parenting.

When you look back and connect those dots, is there anything else there that is important context to who you are today? Well, I'm the middle child of three. So my older brother was, was the sensible one of, of the three, of the three boys. And then my younger brother was more outrageous, I would say. And, and the middle child is always that slightly awkward one. You know, particularly within, within three. So, you know, I wasn't, I didn't excel at

school. I wasn't that interested in school. School for me was almost like a, a social thing, but I enjoyed sport and I enjoyed team sport at, at, at school. So where my older brother was quite academic, he was, he was crap at sport. Um, whereas, you know, I played in the football team or the cricket team or whatever was whatever was going. And, you know, I just enjoyed that. And I think that, you know, being a being a middle child, you're always slightly different. The younger ones always ends up being the spoiled one, the older ones, the sensible one, And the middle one tends to be in his own lane, certainly from the middle children I've met. What did you think you were going to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be Evel Knievel. I wanted to be a stuntman. And then there was a program, The Full Guy, with Lee Majors in it, who drove around in a big truck and so on. He was a stuntman. I thought that was super cool. So I was always fascinated by cars and speed and so on. He was a stunt man and I thought that was super cool. So I was always fascinated by cars

and speed and so on. So that attracted me to just the world of engines. And from a very early age, from about 12, I was pestering and pestering my mum because I knew my father wouldn't buy me one to buy a motorized go-kart.

And I saved up what I had. And then for my 12th birthday, we found this thing in the back of a newspaper, this secondhand sort of 20-year-old go-kart. And it was too low to drive around a farm or on the grass. So we found a track. And suddenly I discovered this you could race these things and and suddenly that whetted my appetite at a very young age and you know Nigel Mansell at the time was a complete hero of mine I was starting to get into into Formula One so from a very early age you know I became almost obsessive about wanting to be a racing driver to the point that

I didn't want to grow any taller I got you know to five foot seven and thought yeah I don't want to grow any any tall I was almost willing myself to um to be short um so so uh because all racing drivers tended to be sort of pint-sized during that time. So for me, that was my dream. I could just visualize myself being a racing driver, and everything else became secondary at that point. What influence did your mother and father have separately on you? They had a huge influence on me, both in different ways. My father worked in the automotive industry so he

shared a passion for for cars and engines and and um motor racing you know he was uh he'd done some marshalling in his youth and always liked being around around cars he always had you know nice cars and and working in that industry, he was hugely knowledgeable. And my mother would always encourage us to follow our dreams and she'd always push us as children, never to accept just being run of the mill. Always push yourself, always extend yourself. And so she had an awful lot of drive, you know, in her. And so it was a combination, you know, of the two. So once I discovered this world of motor racing, it's around the age of 12, you know, my father and

I were able to then, you know, we spent quite a lot of time together you know traveling the country and then racing internationally and then into car racing and so on and it was a it was a great thing to be able to you know to share with him and he you know he made a lot of sacrifices to help me in in my career um my brothers both had the chance to have a go at racing. Neither of them were, you know, were interested. And so we spent a lot of time going up and down the country, the different kart races. My mom would pack a, you know, pack all the sandwiches up and, you know, it became a family thing going to these different racing events.

I'm really intrigued by that winning streak in people and that competitiveness because not everybody, and you would have seen this in the drivers and the people you've worked with, not everybody has that. They don't have that like competitive tenacity where they just have to win.

Where does that come from in you? Have you figured that out? Is it something which has built over time? Was there always a bit of a glimmer of that winning at all costs or i think it's something it's in in your dna and look i've got i'm one of three uh boys in our in our family and i'm very different to my to my brothers and um you know i've got the same parents, but we're all very different. And I think you either have it, you know, or you don't. And, you know, I always had this inner drive and desire. It was purely focused around, you know, motor racing. I didn't envisage myself being a tennis player or, you know, anything else. I just wanted to race.

I just wanted to compete. And I would watch hours and hours of video footage on VHS tapes of old races and Grands Prix and, you know, study the minutest of details of, you know, what racing boots Nigel Mansell was wearing or, you know, you totally engross yourself in all aspects of it. And I think visualization is a big thing as well. So I think if you visualize something and you really want it,

I've found certainly in my life that that's absolutely achievable because you're setting yourself a target, you're setting yourself a goal and that's what you've got to shoot for. There's a lot of talk around visualization. I think there was a book that came up called the secret which um somewhat painted visualization as a uh supernatural force in the world that kind of conspires to give you what you want when you talk about visualization do you see it as a supernatural force or do you see it as much more of a practical satellite navigation of? I think, I think you could see it as both in many respects. You know, I'm probably more practical in my, in my thinking, so I'm not engaged with the

supernatural. But, but yeah, I'm a great believer that if you visualize something, if you see yourself being on that podium and you believe in it and you want it and you really strive for it, you can achieve it. And I didn't achieve it as a driver, but I went on to achieve it as a team principal. And whether that's winning a Grand Prix or winning a World Championship, winning a constructors world championship, it's having that belief, never losing sight of that goal. Because that's what takes you through the, you know, the tough days, the difficult days, when everything seems to be conspiring against you, that you've got to keep believing in that target

and visualizing that target. And I would say by and large during my career, that's come true. You talked about your kind of obsessive focus on the details, even looking at a very young age, looking at these cassettes and seeing what boots they were wearing. That obsession as well, that obsession on the smallest of details, how has that played a role

in everything that happened throughout the next couple of decades of your life? I think it's just a question of leaving no stone unturned, just always pursuing all the incremental areas because they all add up and it's all about attention to details and sometimes it's the smallest things that can make the largest of difference and you collectively add all of those elements together and they add up at the end of the day. So, you know, particularly in the business that I'm operating in Formula One, it is all about the detail. It is all about leaving no stone unturned, about pushing the boundaries, about extracting every ounce of performance out of these amazing machines, which ultimately, it's the people that drive that. And

so it's therefore creating a culture that empowers that essence of it never being enough, always striving to achieve more. And then it's almost the fear of failure that drives you on because once you've sampled and you've tasted success, it becomes addictive like a drug and you just want to experience it again and have that winning feeling. It's interesting.

So let's start with the culture piece then with the team. So you said it's about creating that culture, a culture where every detail matters. In a practical way, there'll be loads of people listening to this podcast now that are building projects or businesses or they might have a dance class, whatever they're doing. How do they practically make those around them really appreciate the small stuff well i think you have to lead by example and i think that uh you know it's all about um you know just continually looking to to improve to be better so example, the races that we win, you know, you can always learn. It's never, ever enough. You know, the last race we won in Monza, could we have done a better job on the strategy? Could we have been quicker in the pit stop? Could we have had a better start?

Was our preparation in the lead up to the race, you know, good enough? Did we focus enough attention in the practice sessions on the things that turned out to be important in the Grand Prix? So being self-analytical is a key aspect of driving performance and never being satisfied saying, yeah, that was good enough, because it never is. There's always something that you can learn, that you can improve, and that you can build on as you're building this database of continual knowledge. Does that change how you choose people to join the team? Are you looking for people that have a predisposition to care about the small stuff or that are detail orientated?

I think you need, you know, within a team, you need different strengths for different roles. And so when you're within Formula One, you've got obviously the design side of the business, thes Prix around the globe. And so you need different people for different roles, but it's all having that commonality of which is the car, which is, you know, these two amazing machines that we have to turn out at these 22 races a year, and to operate at their optimum. And that is the focal point, you know, that everybody's, you know, vested interest is, is involved in. So you've got to have, you know, an eclectic mix of people that create a team. But so long as the goal that everybody is reaching for and striving for is the same, you know, you're going to have a myriad of different personalities. I mean, we're circa sort of 700 to 800 people, you know, in our team.

Plus then on top of that, we've got an engine group that we're building as well. So over a thousand people on one campus in Milton Keynes. And of course, you're going to get a vast range of personalities and characters. But the one thing is common is it's all about the car. It's all about performing on the track. How does one keep, is that 22 different departments as well? Yeah.

So it's 22 different departments across the business. And for me, it's about getting the right people in the right roles and empowering them to do their job so that they've got clear objectives, clear targets that they're shooting for and then backing them. So I see a lot of my role is to ensure that they've got the support around them, they've got the tools around them, that they're defended when they need defending

and that they're guided when they need that when they need guidance and i think that there's no point i'm not an aerodynamicist or an engine engineer or i don't have any formal you know qualifications bar a couple of a levels um so i'm not a specialist in any any one area so my role is to ensure that i'm putting the right people in the right roles and getting them collectively to work together. I feel like that is the ultimate goal of business. It's funny because as entrepreneurs, sometimes we think that we should be good at everything or that we should know how to do every job better than the person within that team. But what you said there, I think is very, very true in the sense of it's finding the right people and binding them with a culture that gets the best out of them which is not an easy thing to do it's not because you know there's

a lot of pride people have egos as as well but i think it's accepting where your strengths and where your weaknesses are and i think that that not everybody can be a phenomenal aerodynamicist or an engine engineer or a chassis designer or a number one mechanic. And it's a matter of identifying the right people for the right roles and empowering them to get on their job. There's no point me employing Adrian Newey as probably the best aerodynamician in the history of the sport and then telling him how to do his job

or telling Max Verstappen how to drive a car. You can point out things that you're seeing and you can offer some guidance, but in terms of it's down to them in their specialist areas to you know to to operate and you try and give them the right tools in the right environment that enables them to flourish and succeed have you had instances in your career where you've hired a very talented arsehole and what i mean by that is someone who's so good at their job, but ego, personality, something has just... Well, Formula One attracts them.

And egos and arseholes are not too far apart sometimes. So, but, you know, there's no I in team. And I think that you quickly, you see, if you have a talented individual that isn't working in a team environment, they quickly become isolated. And they either change their way and embrace the team, or they end up falling by the wayside and not achieving their, you know, their potential, because it's too big a sport to be, you know, an individualist in it. You need to rely and trust in the other people around you and the other departments around you to be able to fulfill your, your part. Much of, much of management, I think starts with knowing how to manage yourself. Because if you don't manage yourself successfully, then you can be a pretty awful manager.

Yeah. You talked about self-analysing the team after races, but do you self-analyse yourself? Yeah, of course. I mean, you're always thinking, what could I do better? You know, how could I perform better as a CEO or as a team principal? Did I handle that situation correctly? Is there another way that we could have addressed that? And I think that what I've learned over time is that I used to, when I first came into the sport,

I'd worry about almost everything. And I quickly came to the conclusion, well, there's no point in worrying about everything. Worry about the things you can control, the things that you can't control. Don't let them take your energy. Don't let them take your, you know, your focus or distract you. Focus on the things that you're empowered to make a difference in um and then i just i i'm able to i was able to become more disciplined with my time and implying my time more uh more effectively than being spread too thin emotional control in sports it's very passionate yeah there's a fine line isn't it from what i've observed with some of the great you know managers in the world like sir alex ferguson and football

stars and between like the passion and letting the passion get out of hand yeah absolutely anger and you know how do you balance that and is it a balancing act well i think i think the brits are quite good at that you know keeping a stiff upper lip and, you know, head down, get on with it. And for me, you know, last year's World Championship was very much about that. And you could see, I mean, it was a titanic battle, not just between the two drivers on track, but by, you know, the two teams off track and the person you're gauging yourself and you're pitched against as a team principal is your opposite number. And it's a mental game as much as a physical activity as well. And of course, it was the first time that that team in the seven, eight year period had come under any form of pressure. And I think you see people's true personalities and what they've really got when they're under pressure.

So, of course, you know, when you see your counterpart smashing up headphones and pointing and ranting at cameras, you know that you've got to them because then you know that if they're venting in such a way and they're feeling that pressure that the people beneath them are going to be offloaded onto as well that they're going to be on the receiving end of that and that in my opinion or in my experience caused people to tighten up and i remember before the race in Abu Dhabi getting all the guys together and saying, look, whatever happens today is going to happen.

You know, all we can do is do the best that we can do today. And the most important thing is, you know, be proud of what you've achieved to get us to this position that we're fighting for this world championship. You know, that we've taken it all the way down to the wire. And most of all enjoy it you know enjoy this experience whatever whatever the outcome is going to be we don't know but just let's go in there with an approach of give it everything and enjoy it and embrace it and in the end you know it paid off and i think that as a leader how you conduct yourself permeates throughout a business so if you're

feeling the tension and you're passing that on then for me that's not a healthy way to lead a team by fear you want it to be inclusive you want it to be open you want people to be able to feel that they can that they've got a voice and that voice will be you know will be heard rather than being afraid to speak up for fear of getting their you know the head taken off you came into red bull when um it wasn't doing great as a team and over the the next five six six years you really turned that ship around from the outside. I mean, people might see that as quite a simple thing, but I was reading about how you, um, you'd,

you'd come to work on your first day of work. The consultants had flown over and fired the previous management team, which is always causes a little bit of unease, shall I say, and then they fly out and leave you there. And then from there, you've got 450 people in this team. That's kind of dysfunctional. It's not, it's not reaching its potential. Tell me, because there's a lot of, I always think about going into companies where there's an existing culture and how you unpick it and turn it around. Tell me how you did that at Red Bull. Well, that first day I arrived, I remember arriving in the office with a secretary that was in tears because her previous boss had been just fired. There was unopened Christmas cards on the desk, a half-drunk cup of coffee.

Okay. And a fairly disgruntled workforce that had been through a revolving door of management changes whilst the team had been uh you know owned by jaguar so um it's like okay how am i you know what's my game plan here and my my plan was engage with the people understand what are the issues listen you spend you know the next few months just listening and form your own picture. And so, you know, that's what I did over the first couple of months. I spent time walking around the factory, engaging with people, listening. And then the picture started to come clear that, you know, there were pockets within the team that, you know, there was real capability and talent, but it was just clear that they weren't working collectively. There was this blame culture within the business where the drawing office blamed Aero, Aero blamed the wind tunnel, you know, R&D blamed production, the race team were blamed, everybody. And there was just this blame culture

that there was no accountability or collective, you know, responsibility. So it was then a question of, okay, how do we unpick that? And how do we create the glue to bring this, this together? And for me, what was really needed was, was technical direction. And I thought, well, I'm going to go after the best in the business. And that was Adrian Newey. Adrian had had an incredible career at Williams and McLaren. And, you know, there'd been, you know, a couple of years where McLaren hadn't been delivering at its potential. And you could see that business was changing

and it just felt like there was a window of opportunity. So, you know, I made sure I got to meet Adrian and I built up a relationship with him and his then wife and then managed to convince him to come and join the team. And that was a litmus moment because then suddenly people woke up and said, wow, if Adrian knew he was prepared to come here, he must see something that he believes in. And, you know, we set off from there and that then, you know,

galvanized the technical career because Adrian's the most single-minded, you know, engineer I've ever come across. And, you know, that galvanized the team because it was, well, if Adrian says that's the direction we're going technically, that's the way we're going. And it then put a sense of purpose into the design office and that enabled me to attract more talent to supplement what was there to weed out the few bits that needed tidying up but the core basis of the team hadn't really changed from what had been underachieving at

jaguar we just put in clear leadership into a into a structure and started to instill a culture of it's not just about having the seventh biggest budget which means you're going to finish seventh there's a question of okay what can we do how can we push the boundaries how can we be more innovative how can we take the fight to the guys at the front because we're not prepared to settle you know being seventh we want to win how what is the fastest route to getting uh into a winning position okay so i've got three questions there that came to mind the first one was about single-mindedness in in business and in leadership sometimes single-mindedness is seen as being undemocratic and like i think there's sometimes people think that organizations are supposed to be like business and in leadership, sometimes single mindedness is seen as being undemocratic. And

like, I think there's sometimes people think that organizations are supposed to be like democratic, where everyone gets a vote, and then we decide which direction we're going in based on the vote. But you've highlighted single mindedness in that instance as being a real unifier, and a real motivator. Yeah, no, absolutely. And look, you know, obviously, you want to listen, and you want to gauge, but at the end of the day, somebody's got to make a decision. Sometimes that might not be the most popular of decisions. But the most important thing is to make a decision to say, this is the direction that we're going in. sure that you give it your best shot but if it's not working to recognize that it's not working not be afraid to change to stick your hands okay we got it wrong let's let's go another route because the worst thing is just repeating the same mistake after mistake you know after mistake and i think you know good leadership um is strong leadership where, you know,

people want to know what is the direction, what is the objective, why are we doing this? What are we pushing for? What are we striving for? And, you know, it's about taking people on that journey, but about having, you know, very clear goals and objectives. That taking them on the journey with you, I guess that's the job of inspiration and communication.

How important is that when you're trying to get 450 people to come along with you, really making sure you've nailed down communication and I guess inspiring communication? And how has Red Bull done that? I think Red Bull, you know, is a business, a phenomenal business that have, you know, it's a maverick brand. It's pushed the boundaries in everything that it does.

It's a lifestyle brand. It's always been edgy, you know, with the extreme sports that they've been involved in. And so I'm a bit of a, a you know very much a maverick and i think taking that dna and you know implementing it within a formula one team has been you know incredibly effective and uh what's enabled us to be dynamic is that we've had the full support you know of the of the chairman you know, of Dietrich Mateschitz, who has been passionate about this activity. And he's, you know, unwaveringly, you know, backed us. And there were difficult days where, you know, things came under scrutiny.

But he gave the time and the stability within and allowed the stability within the business for us to really cultivate, you know, a winning machine and with the key people in the support that he's shown us and the freedom that he's enabled us to have to operate effectively, efficiently, quickly and sharply without being bogged down by the process of a corporate entity. So we've kept that agility. And even though the company has grown to three times the size that when Rebel came into the sport. It's maintained that racing spirit, that ability to make quick decisions, whether it's on a driver or a sponsor or a member of staff or, you know, whatever it may be.

We've had that dynamic ability to move and adapt quickly. It's so important. I spent so long, you know, I spent 10 years working with CEOs and founders on their marketing. And I'd see time and time again, how really the cost wasn't being wrong, it was being slow. So it was taking nine months to find out you're wrong versus the team over here that would spend. So if we were pitching an idea, we'd pitch it to two companies at the same time say one of them would take nine months to find out that the idea was bad the other one would take one week to find out it was bad and they'd be on to the next one and that and people don't think of like the design of the very top of the organization the relationship the ceo has with

the chairman and no like stifling board in the way is such a huge competitive advantage over time absolutely and i think you know recently we've had exactly that dilemma where, you know, we had the opportunity to work, you know, with an OEM taking a significant shareholding in the team. But I think it was recognized that, hang on, that DNA will be affected if we cannot continue to operate exactly in the manner that's made us successful with that ability to make

quick fire decisions without having to go through layers and layers of you know process and bureaucracy you talked about innovation being both at the heart of the red bull brand but also it being a big component of what you brought to red bull to make it a winning machine. How did the Red Bull team innovate versus other incumbents? I think we grabbed the regulation. So initially, it was about building and making sure that we got the right tools. So from 2005, when Red Bull came into the sport, for the first four years was about, you know, recruiting Adrian, getting some other key people around him, making sure that we got the right simulation tools and our wind tunnel was delivering reliable results. And then a big regulation change came for the 2009 season, which felt like a clean

sheet of paper for this group to really, you know, grab hold of. And it was a big regulation change at the time. And, you know, we got it right or mainly right because there was contention with the governing body about something called a double diffuser, which certain teams had and others didn't. But it got caught up in the politics between the governing body and the commercial rights holder and the teams who were all arguing for a bigger share. And we sort of got caught in the crossfire of that when it was really about Ferrari and the FIA and had nothing to do with Red Bull.

But we come up with a competitive car. And then suddenly, you know, we were able to start competing and start winning. And we were making mistakes, but we were fast, we were challenging, we were winning races. And we lost out on that championship at the end of the year to Jenson Button and Ross Braun because we'd had a weak start due to this regulation discrepancy. But then from, you know, 2010, we took that momentum into that year. And we're still a little rough around the edges, but we managed to, you know, basically polish ourselves enough that we came out with both championships at the end of 2010. 11, then we went on and was a totally dominant year. And then a big regulation came for 12.

We had to adopt to that and won it at the final race in Brazil against Fernando Alonso. And then stability into 2013 saw another dominant year for the team. And then obviously then it was a complete reset because when 2014 came along, all of the engine regulations changed to this V6 hybrid. And we were completely out of bed. The engine that we had was nowhere near the competitiveness of certainly that Mercedes had come up with. And suddenly you go from being serial winners to turning up at a race and not having a chance of success and that was that was tough to keep the hearts and minds of the people um having been used to winning to suddenly turning up and you know if we're lucky

we won three races that year that were all opportunistic but you know in terms of competing for a championship no chance how do you do that how do you keep their hearts and minds motivated focused i think you you identify again the area that's that's causing the weakness and look to address it um and focus on the bits that you can control so the engine we couldn't control that was from a third party you know supplier we could put pressure on them we could we could try and uh assist them with tools that we had but all we could do is ensure that we made the best chassis that we could possibly make, that we got the best drivers and we got the best out of them. or it was a Budapest type circuit. And then look to address the weakness. And it took us until 2019. And again, a big change from one engine supplier to another manufacturer, to a Honda,

to suddenly have that ability to you know start challenging for for victories and start to build a championship challenge i didn't realize that in a in formula one there were so many changes with engines and regulations so often changing all the time sometimes even in the year really no changes are introduced And, you know, we've seen that this year. And it's not uncommon for clarifications or technical directives, sometimes hidden behind the grounds of safety, to be introduced. And it's about how you adapt to those changes. And that's a question of culture, right?

It is. You you know you can push against it but at a certain point you've got to accept it and uh uh and get on with it and and think okay how how can we turn you know you know shit into fertilizer you know at the end of the day and and and you've got to embrace you've got to embrace the change and you've got to go with it when i look at my competition in all the industries that i'm competing in professionally i could tell you the answer to the question why why i will win like i have my thesis as to why me and my team will beat them yeah um based on it might be culture might be philosophy it might be we care more about this thing and over the long term that's going to pay off when you look at

your competition which has been mercedes yes for in all the press and on the racetrack over the long term that's going to pay off when you look at your competition which has been mercedes yes for in all the press and on the racetrack over the last couple of years why do you think your team will win i think that there's several factors i think that you know something performance is always cyclical and you know mercedes went through an incredible winning spree you know longer than we certainly did and at some point that was always going to come to an end, whether it's through complacency or whatever causes that. And I wanted to make sure that we were the team on the upward graph to capitalize on any sign of weakness. And I think, you know, there were several components. One, of course, is the driver. The driver played a key role, you know, in that,

in that Max Verstappen, you know, emerging as this exciting, determined character, and you will not meet a more determined personality or driver with more commitment and passion than Max. And the team just having this inner belief and again, pushing all of the boundaries, operating at a level that was taking ourselves out of our comfort zone,

whether that be, well, record-breaking pit stops, aggressive strategies, attacking strategies, taking calculated risks to, you know, with high risk, high reward and with very much an attitude of we've got nothing to lose. You know, we've got to throw everything at this. And I think it just in the end came down to desire, that there was more desire and the way that we applied ourselves as a team under massive pressure, we dealt with that pressure, you know, in a very together manner. How hard do you push people? I know you said you let them get on with their job and that they know

better than you do at what they're there to do. But in terms of those one-on-one conversations you're having with those people, to get them to break those records in the pit stop or to get them to really embody the culture of Red Bull and want to win, regardless of whether they've won last year, regardless of what's been written about in the press, what are those conversations and how hard do you have to push? I think you've always got to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone. Because if you're in a comfort zone, you're cruising,

you've got to push yourself. Now, I'm not a table banger or, you know, a hairdryer like an Alex Ferguson, but it's about getting people to go that extra step to take themselves out of their comfort zone. Easiest thing in the world is not to have any change, but you've got to continually evolve. And so whilst we've had tremendous stability,

the way that the organization has evolved is even in the last two years is enormous as we've embraced new challenges of taking on being an engine manufacturer, which is something completely nuts. Why would an energy drinks subsidiary take on Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari and Renault and Honda as being an engine manufacturer? But it takes our own destiny into our own control and brings everything under one

roof and becomes completely integrated. So in many respects, it's totally logical. But starting from scratch is just about attracting, again, all the same basics that served us well on the chassis of getting the right people, the right tools, the right structure and having a can-do attitude of, yep, we're going to shoot for the stars and maybe we're going to land on the moon. But, you know, we're not afraid of taking on a challenge. Have you got a complacency detector built into your mind? Can you sense when you feel like people in teams are becoming complacent? You can sense it. You can feel it. You know, if I have, you know, it's almost a guilt factor that you feel that,

I don't feel like I'm busy enough. I need to be busier. And so you push yourself. And I think in turn you end up, you know, pushing other areas of the business. And I think COVID was a phenomenal challenge. You know, I talk to everybody by surprise. Again, it's how do you take on that challenge? And, you know, we had went from a culture of having know whether our it systems would be able to cope with it and then had to maintain that culture during this totally alien process of being locked

in your in your home but and everything happening on zoom calls and uh and video conferencing and having to design a car remotely um But by keeping that essence of team and communicating and talking, we managed to keep that, embody that sense of team. And I think that was a big factor in why we came up with such a competitive car in 22 or for the 2021 season,

because what we'd done through covid in keeping that essence of team together just gave us a better product for 2021 you must really obsess about the small stuff because you know all these different departments all these teams all it takes is a small pocket of complacency for the standards to drop a couple of percent in the car if one team doesn't communicate properly or if they just don't, you know, really push themselves to find a marginal gain, that can cause like a couple of percent drop

in the performance of the car. That can lose you a championship. You can lose championships as we've seen in seconds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. After years of work, just a few seconds. But I think what we've managed to develop within the business now is this, again, culture of not wanting to let the side machinists or designers or uh technicians at the circuit or or mechanics or engineers um that runs the whole way through the business that nobody

wants to let the side down and i think that uh everybody's got that vested interest in seeing those cars you know succeed and when they do the sense of pride and fulfillment, and of course you have to celebrate success. You have to enjoy success because it's not going to happen every single day. You're going to lose a lot more races than you're going to win. So when you win, embrace it, enjoy it, celebrate that moment, which is what we do as a team after every single race. If we win a race, we get everybody together with a champagne after the race, in the race bays on a Monday afternoon to celebrate that success. And if we haven't won, we'll talk about, okay, why didn't we win? What do we need to do better?

Even when we've won and we've celebrated, we're saying, okay, how can we still be better? How can we improve on this? And getting everybody to share that moment to share in that success is something that's so so important um because then everybody collectively feels it after you won the title in 2021 how did it feel 2021 for me personally was a hugely challenging year because there was the pressure of everything going on track um there was an awful lot going on off track as well as we're building this engine

business and so you're recruiting from you know rival teams and because mercedes being uk-based there was a lot of people coming out of mercedes that heightened the pressure there was then a big pr uh battle as well so you're in front of the cameras every week you're having to defend your position or defend your driver and and it was very concerted in in all direction you could feel the pressure and building and building it was like a heavyweight bout from round one in Bahrain through 22 rounds to when we got it to Abu Dhabi and we went into Abu Dhabi equal on points with Max being a head virtue of race victories Mercedes had gone there with the barristers because they were convinced that Max was just going to drive into Lewis I think on the first lap and they'd be arguing it out in the stewards but you know we qualified on pole and then for the majority of that race

we felt that decisions went against us at the beginning of the race because Max had made a pass and Lewis had cut the chicane but he wasn't told to give the position back and everything we tried in that race it felt like it was slipping away and so what was going through my mind was like how am I going to pick the guys up you know after what am I going to say to Max how you know after such an intense season like this um you know what what am I going to say to them? And then suddenly, it just shows that, you know, anything can happen in life. And suddenly, a window of opportunity presented itself with one of the back markers crashing. And, you know, we had to be on our feet, we took the risk. We made the pit stop.

We bolted on the new set of tires, and Mercedes went defensive and conservative, and that gave us a window of opportunity to challenge for one racing lap, and with a fresh set of tires and Max Verstappen in your car, he was going to go for it, and so when he pulled the

move off at a corner that we completely unexpected i think lewis totally unexpected it because he left the door open there trying to get a good exit onto the onto the straight it was like oh my god and then you know going down the straight they're side by side and you know they get to the chicane and it's he went in a little bit deep and you know the strength of mercedes engine on the straight they're side by side and you know they get to the chicane and it's he went in a little bit deep and you know the strength of mercedes engine on the straight line you've got to get the exit onto the next straight and then they're side by side and then he managed to keep and protect the the inside line into the next left hand and you know at that point it's done, bar, you know, something breaking on the car. And then the feeling of just everything being lifted

and to see him after seven long years of, we've been nowhere. We hadn't even been able to challenge them. And then suddenly to see everything culminate in seeing your driver and car and team cross the chequered lap flag to become the world champion that that was that was just it was very emotional and you just felt all this pressure suddenly lift from you was that the greatest professional moment of your career today undoubtedly i mean the first time i won it, you know, I was 35 or something like that. And that was in the last race in Abu Dhabi

against the odds with Sebastian Vettel. So that was a unique feeling. And it was one of the rare races that Dietrich Mateschitz actually came to. So for him to be there was very special. And that, you know, that was a massive moment for the whole company, for the whole for the whole company for the whole business uh but i think having been through the tough times during that period of

not just domination annihilation by one of your opponents um to never lose sight of what the end goal was and to fulfill that and to win it on the last lap i mean you you couldn't have written it nobody would have believed it if somebody came up with the script and said that's the way this season's going to pan out nobody would have uh you know believed it um so for sure it was you know probably the the biggest moment of my career so far and the whole world was watching i think if people weren't into the f1 someone sent them a text and told them to turn the tv on at that point i remember that certainly what happened with me i remember getting many messages and in some of

our sports chats on whatsapp going oh my god oh my god oh so you turn on the tv and you're watching this last lap and it's just the most crazy it was insane and and of course like yeah you know it was one of the most i think it was the most singly viewed piece of sport um certainly last year if not in the last five years and there'll probably never be a formula one championship like it in the next 20 years um it was so epic and of course sport is polarizing so you know on the one hand you've got you know the Verstappen fans going bananas thinking it was retribution for what had happened early in the year you've got the Hamilton fans thinking that you know the race had been interfered with and it was unfair um and then you've got the neutrals that just witnessed the

most phenomenal race between two magnificent drivers and teams operating at the at the top of their game and so for the sport you know it was it was fantastic because suddenly again we're just engaging with a whole new audience and wherever we go in the world now, Formula One is having its moment in the spotlight. It is sold out. And the demand for Formula One is just huge wherever we go. If I had a button on the desk now, and the button was a raise a button, and it would erase Mercedes as a team,

it just erase the whole team, would you press it? No, because it's enjoyable, you know, racing against a team of their quality. Because, I mean, they raised the stakes and they raised the bar. And then we had to raise it higher to beat them. And so the satisfaction that that gives you is immense. And I think what, you know, what we're really proud of this year is that we put everything into last year, even at the expense of this year, because again, another

massive regulation change coming into this year, the biggest in the last 40 years. We consult ourselves and say, look, we'll put more time into 2021. And if that costs us a slower start to 22, we'll take that if we can come away time into 2021. And if that costs us a slower start to 22, we'll take that if we can come away with a trophy. We managed to come away with the trophy, but we also managed to start the season with a competitive car compared to all of the other teams that we were sure the last team to swap over

onto the 22 car. But such was the determination and and the motivation within the within the business uh and the talent the car that's been delivered for the drivers this year has been again phenomenal where does your motivation come from you've won you've won you've won you've gone through a period of you know a battle with mercedes you've won again what is driving you now for me um you know there's no better feeling than with mercedes you've won again what is driving you now for me um you know there's no better feeling than winning and when you've won you want to win it again and you want to win it again but for me the next challenge as well is really the next chapter

for the company where not only as a chassis manufacturer but as an engine manufacturer taking a business from scratch built that we built a factory in 55 weeks. We designed and fired up an engine within 12 months. These are ridiculous timescales that we're operating to. But again, it just typifies the can-do culture that there is within the business. And so for sure, the next challenge for us is as an engine and power unit manufacturer

to take on some of these iconic brands, you know, come 2026, when a Red Bull car pulls out of the garage with a Red Bull engine powering it, going up against the Ferraris and Mercedes and Audis at the time. And so it's going to be phenomenal. Naivety. You became a principal at a very young age.

Yeah. A lot of incumbents were double your age. It was quite an older business with legacy systems and ways of doing things. People often view naivety and youth as a disadvantage. How was it? How was your naivety an advantage to you in hindsight? I turned it to an advantage because I think people underestimate youth. And for me, age was never a barrier. It was, it was just a number and it's how you apply yourself. So when I came into the sport sport I was the youngest team principal in Formula One I still am to this day ironically really yeah after 18 years wow um but you know there were guys that have been

in sport icons of the sport you know whether it was a Bernie Eccleston's or Ron Dennis or Flavio Briatore's or Jean-Todd running Ferrari and you know even Eddie Jordan was still around with Jordan Grand Prix at the time. And all, you know, very entrepreneurial people, but all very different, but very single-minded. And again, it's how you conduct yourself. And I didn't go into that forum banging tables or anything like that. I looked, I listened, and I would say something when I felt I had something to say. And you learn as well.

You learn from a way that Ron Dennis conducts himself versus a Flavia Briatore versus a Frank Williams or Bernie Eccleston. Again, as a complete ringmaster, how he operated the business was, you know, was a phenomenal education, you know, for me. And what you saw in each one of those people, it just presented itself in a very different way, was this ruthless competitiveness.

When you have a ruthless competitiveness, you're obsessed, you want to win, you're traveling six months a year to compete and to win. You're consumed in these external battles with the media and on the track and off the track and with this team and Mercedes and whatever else. How do you then be a husband and a father? Do you know, that is the one thing that keeps you grounded. And, you know, I'm very fortunate. I've got a really supportive wife

who's obviously experienced high pressure situations herself of having to deliver and knowing what the scrutiny of... Jerry Halliwell for anybody. You know, a mediaated world is like. So she's been tremendously supportive. And I have three children, and they're what keep you grounded. They don't care what you do as a job at the end of the day. My eight-year-old daughter is obsessed with horses at the moment.

My five-year-old boy is just wanting to make Lego and F-16 fighter planes. And my 16-year-old daughter, suddenly she now understands what I do and I've actually, in her eyes, almost become cool. So, but, you know, family is what keeps you grounded and it keeps you... Formula One is a very glamorous world from the outside looking in.

It can be a lonely place at times um but the end of the day we're not saving lives um you know it's an entertainment it's a sport and what really matters you know is family at the end of the day and uh and that i think makes it more precious in that you don't take it for granted so the the time that I do get with the family, I think it's very important to be present and not to take it for advantage. So I'll make sure that I take the little one to school or pick my daughter up from school on a Friday

because I want to be there. I don't want to be an absent father because I'll never get that time time back so and that then is being disciplined with the management of your own time because otherwise you know your phone's you know always next to you it can take you know Formula One can take over your life if you're not disciplined in in uh in your own approach are you content? Am I content?

I'm very content in so many ways, but I'm still extremely hungry. And, you know, when is enough enough? It doesn't feel like it's enough at the moment. It never will be. And I think that drives, you know, some people are happy to cruise, others want to keep pushing and, you know, I feel like I've only just got going. Do you ever think it will ever be enough?

You know, the problem, you know you that certainly happens in in in this industry and i guess it's the same in in others is that time moves so quickly you never get five minutes to reflect and look back you're always looking forward you know this championship the chapter will close we'll enjoy it for you know a couple of evenings and then it's all about the next one and so you never get time to reflect so actually sitting here talking about some of the stuff in the past, actually you start to think back. And I think it's only when you get to the end of the journey that then, you know, then you get time to reflect.

And I think when I get to the end of my journey, I'll go away and do something completely different. I'll be a sheep farmer or something like that but uh um yeah I think uh but I don't see that in in sight at the moment could you ever imagine there being an end to your journey is that something you can foresee now could you imagine getting to the day where for me do you know i i i go to work um and every day i enjoy what i do um i i'm grateful that i'm paid to do a job that actually i do it for free because you know you enjoy it you love it i enjoy working with the. I enjoy the sport. I enjoy the competition. I'd probably be completely unemployable in another form of life. And I think if you've got a passion for something

that you do, you do it that much better. And yeah, money at the end of the day is just a valuation of success. It shouldn't be the reason that you go to work. And for me, you know, while I have that drive, while I have that enjoyment on the bad days as well as the good days, that's what, you know, motivates me. And I think maybe there'll become a day one day that, you know, I've had enough, but I can't see or envisage that. Have you ever been anxious?

All that press scrutiny, all the pressure you described, have you ever had moments of anxiety? About 10 years ago, when we were in the height of a championship battle back in 2012, I can remember feeling that my breathing, I became self-conscious of my own breathing. And then when you start thinking about your breathing, you start overthinking things.

And for me as an analyst, I think what is going on? You know, have I had too much coffee? Did I have a Red Bull or too many Red Bulls, you know, this morning or whatever? And I couldn't identify, you know, what it was. And it was only, you know, when I spoke to the team physio, I said, I'm just conscious of my breathing and it's made me feel a bit dizzy. And I think I've had too much coffee and this, that and the other. He said, well, it's probably a bit of anxiety, you know.

And so I'd never, you know, I thought that that was a form of weakness. And then I read about it and I spoke to a couple of people about it. And, you know, you then learn to control your, you know, your breathing and so on. And I could then recognize if I felt during that period this feeling start to come on, you know, just to breathe normally, to not take short breaths but to be taking, you know, deep breaths and so on. And it sort of crept up on me without, you know, recognizing it. Same. And, you know, it and uh you know it's not so it's not it's not a weakness it's just your body telling you that you know there's a lot going on here um and it's it's it's way of protesting um and that's what what was happening to me at at that time and i

recognized it and managed to you know to to to, to address it. And, um, there's so many ways, whether it's meditation or just exercise or, or as I say, breathing that, um, and, and, and yeah, I was able to then, if ever I got those symptoms, I was able to, to recognize it and say, okay, know who you are you know i can deal with you did you ever seek out therapy did you ever go get a therapist something i didn't i mean my wife is pretty together with all these things and um she she'd experienced the same thing whether it was before a show or you know some of the stuff they did was insane. Crazy. And so, you know, she helped me, you know, with it. And, you know, to embrace it, to recognize it,

to sort out your breathing. I tried meditating. I couldn't either. You know. And I admire her. She has the discipline to do that every day. I just haven't got my mind. It's too active. But, you know, just definitely learning to deal with it.

And it passed. It was with me for a couple of. And it passed, you know, it passed. It was with me for a couple of months and it passed. And I think it was just my body saying, okay, stress overload here, you know, give me a break. It's what everyone's body seems to do. Gary Neville said to me when he was sat here that he'd been going at such a pace for so long

that one day after reporting on, I think it was the Arsenal game, he's in the commentary box and he just collapses. He goes to the doctors. The doctor says, listen, Gary, you're going too fast. You've been doing it for too long. You need to slow down. He hasn't, but it's funny how the body will tell you before you admit it to yourself. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. My last question to you before I just ask you this one in the book is on a personal level, what are you working on? I understand your professional ambitions. It's very clear,

but on a personal level, when you think about what you want to improve about yourself with your, in your personal situation, what know, we're all aware of our own mortality, particularly with events like, you know, who thought the queen was going to, you know, going as much as you can with the time that we have here and to ensure that you make time. Because we're all, you know, it's particularly informal and you're chasing time all the time. Life is dictated by the stopwatch. But it's important to make time, to be able to have, you know, that incredibly important family time. And, yeah, just to be able to chill out, which sometimes is difficult.

To be able to relax is sometimes a tough thing to do, especially if you're working at a, you know, on a high tempo. But, you know, as in work, you can always, you can always be better. You can always do better. Eddie Han said that to me. Obviously his book is, I know you've spoken to him, but his book is called Relentless. So he is someone that I don't think is willing to relax at any cost. And I hear that quite often. We have a tradition here where the last guest asks a question for the next guest. They don't know who they're writing it for.

Right. And the question that's been written for you is quite an interesting one i don't get to see it until i open this book but the question that's been written for you is it's going to be taken in many ways okay how will you control your own greed how will i control my own greed. I think greed is, greed and jealousy are two very destructive components. And I think, I've never been a greedy person, but I think- You're greedy for titles.

Greedy for um in that respect but i think you need to be magnanimous as well and i think that if you're fortunate enough to um you know achieve success the most gratifying thing to be able to do is to do something good with it, to empower something, either whether it be through charity work or, or just making a difference, making a difference for, for good. Cause it's not just about the trophies and the,

and the plaudits. It's sometimes about doing something good as well. Do you spend enough time thinking about that? I don't. I'm going to, I'm going to admit i don't i'm gonna i'm gonna admit i don't always do more yeah you can always do more and when you do something good and and that can be more rewarding than winning a race than that the feeling that gives you think actually i should actually do do more there's almost a bit of a bias with the mind when you when you feel

like you're constantly running to keep things moving and throwing coal in the engine, that you think, I'll do that thing when. I'll be the philanthropist when. And I remember one day sitting here with someone who said, the correct approach, Steve, is to make sure you don't cut down the forest and then donate to the bees. You're learning to do both at the same time, effectively. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. Incredibly inspiring individual that's reached the same time effectively. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. Incredibly inspiring individual that's reached the very peak of their powers.

And there's very few people I can speak to in this country and in the world that have managed to stay at the top of their game, championship after championship, whether they win or whether they don't win. And that reinvention and what sits behind that in terms of team and culture and philosophy and optimism and attitude is so fascinating to me because winning is one thing, but continuing to

win with new people as the world is changing, as regulations are changing around you is a completely different task, especially in such a technical industry like yours, where there's so many components that you have to leave to trust. So it's so inspiring to read your story. And it's so wonderful to see F1 becoming more and more popular in culture because there's so much about it that I think teaches us lessons about life and teamwork and all of these really important fundamentals. And yeah, it's an honor to meet you as well, because from an entrepreneurial business standpoint, you're an inspiration to me for so many reasons. So thank you for the conversation today. Thank you for being so honest and open. And I appreciate your time your time no thank you very much i've

enjoyed it you Bye.