Christian Horner has signed a “multi-year” contract extension with Red Bull, the team has confirmed.
The 39-year-old has been in charge of Red Bull’s team since it entered Formula One in 2005. The team has won 34 races since then, beaten only by Ferrari (37) and McLaren (44).
The team has won the constructors’ championship for the last three seasons in a row and Sebastian Vettel won a hat-trick of drivers’ titles in that time.
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Jayfreese (@)
30th January 2013, 19:57
Do y’all think “multi-year” contract means:
a) as long as S.Vettel stays?
b) as long as A.Neway stays?
c) as long as he wins?
d) y’all have another idea?
Jayfreese (@)
30th January 2013, 20:04
*Sorry I learned it’s until 2017
HK (@me4me)
30th January 2013, 20:17
source?
Jayfreese (@)
30th January 2013, 20:28
Should I say Helmut Marko
So it would mean Neway would stay with the team until that year as he’s used to model contract with Horner’s.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
30th January 2013, 21:44
So it is looking to be that the Newey/Horner/Vettel/Red Bull combination will continue for at least the next few years. If Renault make a good engine, and Newey continues to work his magic on the new regulations we can expect then that Red Bull will remain near or at the top for some time…
Nick.UK (@)
30th January 2013, 21:57
Yaaaay…!
Kingshark (@kingshark)
31st January 2013, 4:44
There’s no guarantee that even with Newey, Red Bull will stay on top. Newey didn’t design a championship winner for a decade straight (1999-2009). We need another Newey slump to make F1 interesting again. :p
Ilanin (@ilanin)
31st January 2013, 9:22
Ultimately, like any engineer Newey is only as good as the test data he has to work with. Newey’s barren years largely coincide with the era of unlimited testing where Ferrari and Michael Schumacher were able to work on their new designs at Mugello very efficiently. Schumacher was very effective at testing and improving his cars and had an excellent relationship with Rory Byrne. You can say the same thing about Newey and Damon Hill, and to some extent Mika Hakkinen, but somewhat less so with the drivers he worked with after that.
I’d imagine Vettel’s attitude towards F1 makes him an excellent tester, but even if it didn’t in the era of the testing ban it’s obviously much harder to develop the car through on-track testing and the focus is on making the best use of wind-tunnels and simulations; obviously this plays more to Newey’s strengths.
Sri Harsha (@harsha)
31st January 2013, 11:23
Absolutely Spot on mate. If the designer has much better input from their drivers then they can easily develop the car to their liking. In that aspect Vettel was in the lead.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
31st January 2013, 18:02
@kingshark – of course nothing is certain, which is why I said we can expect, not be certain that! I wouldn’t say that 1999-2009 was a “slump”: Ferrari simply out-spent and out-tested all their rivals as @ilanin has highlighted (to clarify I am not suggesting that Ferrari’s success was solely due to their budget but it was a very influential factor, much more so that Red Bull’s budget is today). From when he joined Red Bull it is understandable that they didn’t enjoy immediate success but with the rule changes in 2009 they became significantly more competitive than they had previously been, so is naturally it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume Newey will thrive off the 2014 regulation changes as he has done so many times previously.
JCost (@jcost)
31st January 2013, 7:48
So it was his team running all those “news” about “Horner to Ferrari” to improve his pay check, right?
^Mo^
31st January 2013, 11:53
Or it could be a case of the press having not anything else to write about.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
31st January 2013, 13:43
Seems fair enough to me.