Martin Brundle has hypothesised that former Red Bull boss Christian Horner would not want to return to F1 as a team principal because the role has become more technically focused rather than focusing on management.<\/p>\n
Horner has been out of the F1 paddock since his surprise sacking by Red Bull in July, but he is widely believed to be targeting a return.<\/p>\n
Martin Brundle questions Christian Horner F1 return goals<\/p>\n
While big personalities were the norm back when Horner was appointed in 2005, Formula 1 has evolved to a point that technical minds are often being favoured for the team principal role.<\/p>\n
At Haas, trackside engineering director Ayao Komatsu replaced Guenther Steiner while Horner himself was succeeded by Laurent Mekies, a man who spent many years in a sporting director role at Ferrari.<\/p>\n
With that preference being shown, Brundle has suggested that Horner would not want to return to a team principal role if he did make a comeback to the paddock when discussing his replacement Mekies.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery impressed and he\u2019s handling it in a very mature way,\u201d Brundle said of the current Red Bull boss. \u201cEgo, absolutely non-existent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a new type of team principal these days, aren\u2019t we? That\u2019s why Christian wouldn\u2019t want to come back as a team principal.<\/p>\n
More on Christian Horner from PlanetF1.com \u201cI think with more of an engineering background, seems to be the way to tie together these vast quantities of highly specialised people in a team and he\u2019s got help with the politics, with Helmut Marko and others.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think it\u2019ll be a collaboration on the [2026] driver choice, probably more so than in the past amongst the senior people in Red Bull, but I think he actually is the right man for the right time in Formula 1, and that that\u2019s, that\u2019s the way it\u2019s going.\u201d<\/p>\n Horner has been linked with a number of teams but with the suggestion that he prefers a part-ownership model akin to Toto Wolff at Mercedes.<\/p>\n Latest rumours have linked him to Ferrari but he has also been mooted for moves to Alpine and Aston Martin.<\/p>\n In the Enstone team, newly appointed team principal Steve Nielsen said no conversations have taken plavce with Horner, but that does not mean they will not in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cAs far as I know, no,\u201d said Nielsen at the Singapore Grand Prix when asked if Horner had approached Alpine.<\/p>\n \u201cBut Flavio and Christian are old friends, that\u2019s no secret. What they\u2019ve talked about, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n \u201cBut everything I see and everything I know, there\u2019s no truth in Christian coming to Alpine. But, that doesn\u2019t mean it won\u2019t happen. This is Formula 1 after all.\u201d<\/p>\n
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