Horner on first half of the season: "Max is driving on a very high level"
Published on 03 August 2017 by Julien Lemmen
Eleven races, six podium finishes and 184 championship points in the bag (112 of them coming in the last six races) – the run from the start of the season to the summer break has been a tale of rapid progression and big performance gains for Red Bull Racing.
As the team prepares for the mandatory two-week shutdown, team principal Christian Horner reflects on the highlights so far, and looks ahead to the opportunities to come
Christian, how would you summarise the first half of the season?
"After a difficult start, we've managed since the beginning of the European season to really gain momentum. So going into the summer break, six podiums, including a grand prix victory and third in the championship is where we currently sit. I think the most pleasing aspect is how the car has developed, particularly, as I say, from Spain onwards, and in recent races we've started to have really competitive outings."
Max had quite a bit of misfortune in the first part of the season but how important has it been to see him finish and make it to the flag in the last two races before the summer break?
"He'd been unbelievably lucky until that point, because he had been driving at such a high level. To be taken out in Barcelona, through no fault of his own, to have had successive engine failures in Montreal and Baku, where he was in a position to certainly finish on the podium if not win the grand prix was immensely frustrating. But he has dealt with it incredibly well and I'm certain that after the summer break he is going to have a strong second half of the year."
The performance does seem to be naturally progressing. Do you expect that trend to continue into the second half of the season, even with all the flyaways?
"Very much so. I think the team is working very well collectively. We're getting performance on the car, we've got some venues coming up that hopefully will suit us and we'll keep pushing all the way to the final race in Abu Dhabi. There is a big gap between us and the cars ahead but there are opportunities in the remaining races and we're going to be going all out to try and achieve what we can, and obviously the lessons you learn apply to next year anyway."
How does our current position compare to your pre-season expectations?
"I think we're behind where we want to be, but we're working hard to get onto the front foot. I think we are going to treat the second half of the season as a reset and see what we can achieve over the next nine grands prix."
The Halo has been confirmed for next season, what are your thoughts on that, as a team principal, and what are the challenges of trying to implement in quite a tight timeframe?
"I think the FIA have made the decision, and I understand the reasons they felt compelled to make it, but personally, I don't like the halo. I think it moves away from open-cockpit racing, which Formula One has been. There are obviously challenges with it. It is quite heavy. We have been given an extra five kilos of weight allowance to implement it, but it's not very pretty and it's a shame it's on a grand prix car for next year."
The factory will shut down now, but what does that involve? Is it a complete shutdown or are there elements of the business that still tick over during that period?
"Operationally, it is a complete shutdown. What we're allowed to do is maintenance work. It's the one time all the machines get turned off, all IT gets turned off, so we get to do a lot of servicing of the building, paint the floors, a lot of deep cleaning going on. It's very busy on the service and support side but operationally the vast majority of the business is on a compulsory break."
