Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner reflected on a productive first day of running at the British GP, praising young debutant Arvid Lindblad and offering insight into the team’s ongoing development efforts and structural philosophy.
Horner was particularly impressed by 17-year-old Lindblad’s composed performance in FP1, where the British rookie completed 22 laps and finished just half a second adrift of teammate Max Verstappen.
“I thought he acquitted himself very well. I mean, he’s obviously another product of the junior team. He’s a talented young guy, only 17 years of age. To jump into the car here at this circuit, which is a tough circuit, and be only within half a second, I thought he acquitted himself very well. His feedback was clear and concise, and yeah, he’s definitely a prospect for the future,” Horner told media.
What about the upgrades?
Red Bull brought further upgrades to Silverstone following initial developments seen in Austria. Horner stressed that while conditions were difficult, the session provided valuable insight.
“I think it’s about you bolt the new bits on the car, obviously you then look to correlate them between your development tools and on track, and then it’s a matter of tuning to optimise them. So, the guys and girls are going through that now.
“It was tricky out there. The wind here is particularly tricky and you can feel how gusty it is. So definitely quite a wind effect, but we got some very good data, some very good knowledge from that session. Now let’s see how it comes to play in the session later on.”
Maximising their chances
With McLaren continuing to lead both championships, Horner acknowledged the challenge ahead and reiterated that Red Bull’s focus must remain firmly on maximising each individual weekend, especially at the British GP.
“Well, we’re at the halfway point. McLaren have done a super job so far this year. They’ve been very dominant. We’ve managed to win two races so far. We’re a significant gap behind in the Drivers’ Championship, so everyone has got to take an eye off that now and just focus on race by race.
“They’re all sort of like FA Cup finals, so you’ve just got to try and optimise every single race and then the points tables tend to take care of themselves. But we’re really not looking too far at the championship tables at the moment as opposed to individual races that are coming thick and fast.”
Red Bull and their second seat struggles
Looking ahead to 2026, Horner addressed speculation over Red Bull’s second seat, confirming that while the team has internal options, they remain open-minded.
“Obviously, our priority will be to look at what we have within our pool of talent. Yuki has got until the end of the season to demonstrate that he’s the guy to remain in the car. We have Isack also doing a good job and Liam finding his form as well.
“So, within the Red Bull pool, we have talent. But of course, you’re always open to what is outside of that. We want to field the best line-up that we can for next year. We’ve gone outside of that pool in recent years. If we feel the necessity to do so, we wouldn’t be afraid to do so again.”
The difference between Red Bull Racing and McLaren
Finally, when asked about the structural differences between Red Bull and McLaren, particularly the centralised nature of Red Bull’s leadership, Horner defended the current model.
“Well, look. I think every team structure is different. The role of a team principal in different teams, whilst the job title carries the name, the definition of the role is very different. McLaren have activities in IndyCar, in sports cars, across a whole host of different activities. At Red Bull Racing, I have a clear structure that reports into me, similar to probably Andy [Cowell] does or Toto Wolff does, where you have the main faculties that report into me.
“Pierre Waché probably performs 80% of the role that perhaps Andrea does at McLaren. It’s just a different job title, different functions, different set-up. It’s a set-up that’s worked incredibly well for us on track and off track. We have a very tight senior management, a very strong structure. We got strength in depth.“
Christian Horner added: “We don’t feel, and I certainly don’t feel, that there’s a need to change or tune it. Of course, you’re always tuning as an organisation and optimising, but our structure, the way it is positioned, is very, very clear.”
With the Silverstone crowd behind them and valuable data in hand, Red Bull and Horner now turn their attention to Saturday’s British GP qualifying, and a continued push to close the gap in both championships.
