Horner says he and Wolff are F1’s last ‘dinosaur’ team principals

Horner became F1’s youngest team principal when he took over at Red Bull following the team’s inception in 2005. Along with AlphaTauri's Franz Tost, Horner has been the longest-serving F1 boss on the current grid. 

The 49-year-old Briton has noticed a change in the kinds of personalities and characters that are in the F1 paddock now, compared to when he started out. 

“When I look around the room now, there’s very different personalities,” Horner said on the Unlapped podcast.

“When I first came into the sport, there was Ron Dennis, there was Flavio Briatore, there was Eddie Jordan, there was Jean Todt. There was Bernie Ecclestone running it, there was Max Mosley there, Frank Williams – some really big characters and personalities. 

“Of course now you look around the room – maybe it’s just me getting older – but there’s more managers there and it’s gotten much more technical than the entrepreneurial side.

“So I suppose Toto [Wolff] and myself are perhaps two of the more ‘dinosaur’ type of characters compared to some. Even though I’m still on the younger side of the team principles. 

“But the dynamic and the definition of what a team principal is these days is very different to when I first came into this post.”

Horner and Wolff have emerged as one of F1’s biggest rivals amid Mercedes and Red Bull’s on-track battles in recent years, with several flashpoints occurring between them.

The pair regularly engaged in a war of words throughout Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s fierce season-long title fight in 2021. 

The relationship between Horner and Wolff has often been a focal point of Netflix’s Drive To Survive documentary series.