How Horner met Newey and Red Bull stories

In 2021 Max Verstappen won Red Bull's first driver's title since the remarkable Sebastian Vettel era, in which the German and the team together won eight Formula 1 titles in four years, but a lean period followed until last year.

This year, their Dutch maestro romped to his second F1 drivers' world title while the team bagged their fifth constructors' title since they made their debut at the 2005 Australian Grand Prix.

The 'double' this year, also ending eight years of Mercedes-induced pain for the Red Bull.

In their first year, 17 years ago, David Coulthard headed the driver line-up with Christian Klein the second driver, with Horner as team principal a common denominator, as were Helmut Marko doing the driver dealings and, of course, guru technical officer Adrian Newey commandeering the genius stuff behind the scenes.

Now, 347 Grands Prix, 234 podiums, and 92 victories later, that same trio still remains, with Marko still the kingmaker or career breaker, Horner handling the fluff and BS that is F1's baggage, and Newey doing his thing - the almighty Red Bull RB18 a testament to his famous mind, and the team of smarties he has gathered around him at Milton Keynes.

Team boss Horner recalled how he lured the acknowledged preeminent F1 design guru to Dietrich Mateshitz's dream team of the time: "What was missing was a clear technical direction.

"I'd always been a fan of Adrian and his cars going way back to Leyton House times in the late 1980s. He was the very best that's ever been in F1. It was a question of how could we entice, how could we attract Adrian to join the rebel team.

"That's where David Coulthard came into play. He was our driver at the time and obviously worked with Adrian for many years at both both Williams and McLaren."

From Newey's side, he relished the challenge: "Yes, there was a bit of nervousness on my part. I'd been lucky enough to work for two great teams, and I'd been fortunate enough to win several races, championships and so forth, but I just felt it was starting to get a bit stale at McLaren.

"Like Leyton House, it felt like unfinished business that there was a team to be involved in right from the start. Winning championships seemed a very distant dream. Just trying to win races was something that really intrigued me."

That interest has stood the test of time, as Newey has been part of the Red Bull setup ever since, despite a few journeys into other projects when Mercedes 'owned' F1 at one point, plus engine issues that plagued the team.

However since Honda came on board after the McLaren debacle, the Japanese auto-giant got their sums right, as Max Verstappen came of age, no surprise then that Newey is committed again. Proof? Three titles in two years and one mega piece of kit in the RB18 which won 17 of the 22 wins available this past season.

Looking back on the first 'edition' of Red Bull's glory years with Vettel, Horner said: "Sebastian worked incredibly hard. He was incredibly dedicated. He was often the last guy in the engineering office at the end of a Friday or, or Saturday, his debriefs... I mean, it took him about half an hour to do the formation lap."

Newey echoed Horner and added: "A legend. For somebody who is not English by birth, his understanding of English humour was, on top of his ability to recall and imitate English humour, incredible. He was very methodical in his approach, and he drove himself hard.

"If he made a mistake, then he would want to understand how it was a mistake, why he made it and what he could do better. He very rarely made the same mistake twice. He spent lots of time on the driving simulator, testing our theories and working out what it was we needed to try to achieve, so that dedication helped us from an engineering side to make the car better," explained Newey.

Last year the RB16B was good enough to win the final F1 drivers' title of the last edition of the sport's rules; the RB18 was thus a totally new concept, as was for their rivals. Despite a few preseason jitters, Red Bull's 2022 weapon was always good but, as is tradition with Newey-cars, it got better and better as the season progressed.

"It's a car, I think we can be very proud of," declared Newey. "In so much as we had a tight championship battle through 2021, obviously, so we kept developing the car well into the season.

"Of course, when you have limited resources, then if you're putting research and development into that car, then that research and development you're putting into this brand new, very new car for that for the new regulations, which we knew were coming, obviously.

"So it's a difficult balancing act. But we focused on trying to get the fundamentals right. In the preseason testing, we were a little bit worried before we got there. We'd already done a little bit of research and knew roughly what we need to do to improve.

"The car definitely had some weaknesses in the first half of the season, of course, but we really reduced those weaknesses, and certainly by the second half, then we had a fully competitive package," revealed Newey.

Horner gave his verdict: "It was a very tough year. When you look at the statistics, it looks like we totally dominated it but certainly - in the first half of the season - Ferrari had their chances and probably a quicker package. But Max was outstanding throughout the year, particularly in that first half."

Looking ahead to 2023, Newey predicted: "Ferrari won't be resting, they will be sorting out their weak areas, they had a couple of reliability problems they hadn't made a couple of mistakes, so there'll be right back.

"Of course, you obviously saw Mercedes starting with the car that was quite a long way off the pace and evolving it to the point they won the last races but one so we know they will be right there. So it's going to be a tough year for sure," concluded Newey.