Formula 1 doesn’t wait. The cars, the competition, the technology – everything shifts. And after two decades leading one of the most dominant teams in the sport, no one knows this better than Christian Horner, who now faces arguably his biggest challenge in F1 yet.
Horner has barely had time to catch his breath. When we speak, he’s just returned to England from the US and is preparing to board another long-haul flight to Melbourne for the Formula 1 season opener. “It’s been a busy few days,” he says almost offhandedly – though at this point, relentless travel is just part of the job.
Staying ahead, however, is the real challenge.
“When you’re the team being chased, complacency is your biggest enemy,” Horner tells Forbes Australia. “You have to keep pushing, keep evolving, because the moment you stand still, you’re moving backwards.”
For Horner, who is entering his 20th year as Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Principal, that mentality will be put to the test on Sunday when the lights go out at Albert Park. The street circuit, the unpredictable weather, the first competitive outing for the new cars – he says it’s where the real pecking order emerges.
“Nobody really knows where they stand until that first qualifying session,” he says. “You get glimpses in testing, but Melbourne is the first real scorecard.”
While Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari debut may be the biggest headline leading into the season opener, Red Bull is entering 2025 with its own shake-up. New Zealand’s Liam Lawson has replaced Sergio Perez, joining four-time world champion Max Verstappen, in a seat that Horner concedes may be the “most difficult in all of Formula 1”.
Lawson has been part of the Red Bull system for years, but stepping into the second seat at Red Bull Racing has historically been a trial by fire.
“Liam is hungry, and he’s fast,” Horner says. “We’re not putting too much pressure on his shoulders, but this is a huge opportunity for him.”
A new era on the horizon
While Red Bull’s immediate focus is on Melbourne and the 2025 fixture, the team is also deep into preparations for one of its biggest transformations yet – becoming a full-fledged engine manufacturer for the first time. The upcoming 2026 regulations will introduce a new generation of hybrid power units, and rather than relying on an external supplier, Red Bull has committed to developing its own.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” Horner says. “But if we couldn’t buy an engine capable of winning, we had to make one ourselves.”
It’s a bold move, but after 282 podiums, 122 race wins, 8 Drivers’ Championships and 6 Constructors’ Championships, Red Bull believes now is the time to take control of its own future.
“It’s the biggest technical challenge we’ve taken on,” Horner says. “We’re going from a customer team to producing our own engine from scratch. That’s a massive shift.”
“There’s no safety net anymore.”
Christian Horner
The project – led by Red Bull Powertrains in collaboration with Ford – is leveraging Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to run complex simulations, optimise performance, and refine reliability as the engine moves from prototype to production.
“We’re running more simulations than ever before,” says Red Bull Chief Information Officer Matt Cadieux. “The sheer amount of data we’re processing is unprecedented. Oracle’s infrastructure allows us to push the limits without hitting physical constraints.”
It’s the first time Red Bull has had full control over its own power unit. For years, the team relied on suppliers like Renault and Honda, often navigating unpredictable partnerships. Now, the responsibility – and the risk – rests solely within its Milton Keynes headquarters in the UK.
“We’ve built a winning culture by being relentless, this is the next step,” Horner says. “You can’t take your eye off the present while building for the future. That’s what separates the best teams from the rest.”
Inside the F1 war room
While Horner orchestrates the big-picture vision, Cadieux is ensuring that the team’s technology is up to the task – both for race-day strategy and long-term powertrain development.
For 2025, Oracle Red Bull Racing has further refined its use of AI and cloud technology, increasing the speed and scale of its real-time simulations to make even sharper race-day strategy calls.
“We’re running billions of simulations,” Cadieux says. “Every possible weather change, every potential safety car, every degradation curve – our engineers are using that data to make the best decisions faster than our rivals.”
In Melbourne, where the weather forecast is unpredictable, that matters.
“When the conditions shift, we need to react instantly,” Cadieux explains. “Oracle’s cloud computing lets us crunch thousands of variables in real time. That means if rain hits, we already know the best course of action before it happens.”
Beyond race-day strategy, AI is now playing a bigger role in the pit wall.
New for 2025, Red Bull has introduced an AI system that rapidly scans historical rulings to help the team respond to potential penalties within the critical 30-minute protest window. Cadieux says the technology will speed up decision-making and improve the team’s ability to challenge race rulings in real time.
(No doubt, it’s the kind of chaos Drive to Survive lives for – frantic radio calls, last-minute protests, and a whole lot of finger-pointing.)
Cadieux says it’s a small window of time that could make the difference between securing a podium or losing out entirely. But the team’s biggest challenge isn’t computing power – it’s the speed of software development itself.
“The limiting factor isn’t how much data we can process – Oracle has endless capacity,” Cadieux explains. “It’s how quickly we can refine our models to make better predictions. That’s where we’re really pushing boundaries.”
Addicted to winning
Between chasing another title in 2025 and preparing for their first-ever in-house engine in 2026, Red Bull’s workload has never been bigger.
But Horner doesn’t see that as a problem – he sees it as an opportunity.
“You can’t afford to sit on your laurels. You’ve got to keep progressing, keep evolving, keep moving. The moment you think enough is enough, you’re done.”
Christian Horner
Melbourne will be the first real test – for Lawson, for Red Bull’s data-driven race strategy, and for the team’s ability to stay at the top while building for the future.
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