Christian Horner sees a return to F1
The 2026 season of Formula 1 is upon us and it will be the first World Championship since 2005 that he will not see on the grid Christian Horner. While the now former team principal of Red Bull he is increasingly close to purchasing, together with a consortium of entrepreneurs close to him, 24% of the shares ofAlpine currently owned by the American fund Otro Capital, Juan Pablo Montoya still believes that the 52-year-old English manager would be the perfect person to put things right within the corridors of Ferrari Sports Management. The former Colombian pilot, asked about this by the portal Vision4Sportwhich deals with the sale of hospitality packages for Formula 1, however, places the possibility of working with peace of mind, without always being at risk of dismissal, as an essential condition for any Prancing Horse driver.
Horner in Ferrari? Montoya’s opinion
“Honestly – explains Montoya – I believe that Ferrari would benefit from someone like Christian Horner. But they should also understand that they are faced with two years of shit and that in F1 there are development programs of at least 4 years in which patience is needed. You can’t have people talking nonsense, even if journalists love it when leaders start talking nonsense. The team must be united, as seen in Mercedes and McLaren. They do a great job keeping quiet and supporting their pilots. If Kimi Antonelli crashes then Wolff says ‘Oh, he’s young, he’s brilliant. Don’t worry, we’re glad it crashed. It’s all experience‘”.
Montoya then also teased the Italian newspapers, explaining how it is not necessarily the responsibility of Frederic Vasseur when things don’t work: “Is it really his fault? I think this is Ferrari’s biggest problem… Every time something goes wrong, the boss gets fired. They need to build rather than destroy and so either you have people good enough to design the best machine or you don’t. And, if you don’t have them, you need to figure out how to hire them. You can’t say ‘the car sucks, you’re out, we’ll hire someone else‘, because the next one will come, people won’t like it and will leave. They need to stop firing and moving people, leave politics at home. In McLaren and Mercedes you win and lose together, without accusations, but Italians are fiery and so influenced by the media that it’s like saying ‘We need someone’s head on a silver platter!‘”
Why Alpine is the best solution
Returning to Horner, Montoya still hopes to see him back in the paddock soon: “It would be great if he came back. The success he has achieved with Red Bull all these years has been incredible. So if he gets a chance to try again, I think it would be great. And I think he knows what it takes to do that. It’s a bit like Toto Wolff… You come in, then you put the right people in the right places and, like it or not, in the end these people will get the job done. The best choice for him? In my opinion it would be the Alpine. They have the Mercedes powertrain, England based, everything else. It is also close to Red Bullabout 20-30 minutes away. I think if he could join that team, Christian Horner could do wonders for them”.
