Christian Horner reveals Adrian Newey warned about leaving Red Bull if the Porsche partnership went through
Christian Horner was the Team Principal at Red Bull Racing when the Milton Keynes-based outfit made the decision to set up their own powertrain facility. Porsche had also shown keen interest in partnering Red Bull for the powertrains. Horner has now come out and revealed how Adrian Newey warned about leaving Red Bull if the Porsche deal went through.
After Honda decided to leave the sport in the early 2020s, Red Bull had to make a big decision. Whether to become a customer team or to start building their own engines. They went with the latter option, with knowledge transfer from Honda.
However, it was a big project, and then now Red Bull GmbH CEO Oliver Mintzlaff brought in Porsche, which was back then sponsoring RB Leipzig. Christian Horner, speaking on the Up to Speed podcast, detailed the situation at Red Bull when Porsche showcased interest in becoming a partner.
Horner detailed how Dietrich Mateschitz had been sick when the Porsche deal came about, and that it’ll be up to the directors and shareholders to approve it. He then went to the Thai shareholders and explained to them that the Porsche deal was no good.
Horner also explained how Adrian Newey warned about leaving Red Bull if the deal went through.
“I saw Shalom and his representative and I told him I look, I don’t think it’s a good deal [Porsche deal]. They came to do a little bit more investigation and they said to Adrian, you know, what do you think? And he said, well, ‘I’ll leave if this deal happens’. He left anyway, as it turned out a few years later,” said Christian Horner.
“I think for the first time in or one of the very few times in their history, the Thai family actually didn’t sign off, you know, the Porsche deal, which immediately, and I was told, you know, by Helmut, if you tell the Thai guys, you’re fired, you’ll be fired,” added Horner
Christian Horner explained why the Porsche deal fell through
Christian Horner, speaking with Autosport in an interview, explained how Red Bull set up the RBPT facility in a year, and just 12 months after, had a running prototype engine. It was then that Porsche came in and showed their interest in the project.
However, when Horner went to Weissach to see the Porsche facility, he realised that RBPT were way ahead.
“I went to Weissach and saw some of their facilities and recognized that we were miles ahead of what we were doing in preparation for Formula 1 than where they were. And it felt like there was going to be a lot of compromises bringing these two entities together. Challenges in the direction of a 50/50 partnership. So, um, that deal didn’t go through in the end,” said Christian Horner.
Red Bull recently won their first race with the RBPT powertrain in Malaysia and also won the very next race in Singapore.
