Horner, 48, was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. He raced karts from an early age and competed in Formula 3 and Formula 3000 before retiring at the age of 25 to enter motorsport management. He was appointed team principal of Red Bull Racing in 2005. He married Geri Halliwell in 2015 and the couple have a son, Monty, 4. He is stepfather to Halliwell’s daughter Bluebell, 15, and he has a daughter, Olivia, 8, from a previous relationship. They divide their time between London and the Cotswolds.
I wake up around 7am, when Geri and I hear the rumblings of children in the house. During the week we live in north London, so I slip out early for a run on Hampstead Heath with my Airedale terrier, Margo. I don’t take a phone because those 30 minutes give me enough time to think about the day ahead in Formula One.
Max [Verstappen] has been locked in a battle for the drivers’ championship with Lewis Hamilton — it’s the closest we’ve been since Red Bull won four consecutive titles from 2010 to 2013. For the first time in years Mercedes, Hamilton and their team principal, Toto Wolff, have been under serious pressure. The media play Toto and me off against each other but we are very different. I grew up in motorsport, he is a financial guy.
Back home I shower and then breakfast with Geri, who cooks a mean scrambled eggs on toast. I try to share the school run duties. Fortunately it doesn’t involve a car, as Geri isn’t a good driver — she thinks everybody else is wrong.
Then I jump in my car and head to the Red Bull headquarters in Milton Keynes. We employ almost a thousand people now and I can feel the intensity of this season’s battle as I walk through the door. The team love seeing Max fighting so hard. A lot of drivers would have crumbled under the pressure.
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It’s nonstop meetings all the day. We spend a lot of time on engineering issues because Red Bull will build our own engines when [its partner] Honda leaves F1 at the end of the year. It’ll make us masters of our own destiny.
Lunch is usually soup or a sandwich from the canteen. I often eat with Adrian Newey, who is our chief technical officer. Max and Sergio [Pérez, Verstappen’s team-mate] only pop in once a week to drive on the simulators, which are incredibly realistic and help our engineering team fine tune for race day. Unlike other sports, F1 doesn’t allow us to test the actual cars between races.
I travel to 23 grands prix every year, but this summer we had the time to take the kids camping in fields near our farm in the Cotswolds. It was lovely to stay in one place for a while. We bought a big tent and I filled the kids with marshmallows, so there was no chance of getting them to sleep.
Our son, Monty, loves tractors — he may have got that from me because I keep an old Massey Ferguson [pictured] in my garage. During harvest a friend allowed Monty to spend hours on their combine harvester, just going up and down the fields.
There’s not much time for a hobby but I have started playing the drums. Luckily for everybody else I keep them in a barn away from the main house, so they can’t hear me destroy a Phil Collins solo. Ronnie Wood came to see us over the summer; he is a great drummer and gave me tips.
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My claim to fame is that I have drummed at Wembley. It was before a Spice Girls concert and fortunately there was no crowd. The band started playing The Chain by Fleetwood Mac [the F1 theme tune] and I just joined in.
I’ve also taken up horse riding, despite saying I preferred horsepower. Geri and the girls love to ride, so I’ve become a bit of a happy hacker. It’s a great way to switch off. Geri is more elegant than me; I’m all brute force.
I try and leave the office by 6.30pm so I can see the kids before lights out. I’m usually starving, so Geri and I might eat a chicken dish or pasta for supper. By the time I get to bed I have no problem sleeping. If there is something going on at work, that can wake me up at 3am and I find my head is full of thoughts. I’ll probably have a few more nights like that before the end of the season.
Bringing together 100 of the most remarkable people from this acclaimed column, A Life in the Day is published by Times Books at £12.99
