Poll The Worst Team Principal?

[Viscount]

Well I disagree with Horner being one of the worst principals. Just like F1 drivers winning championships in lower series to make it to F1, as a team boss Horner won 3 consecutive titles in F3000 (GP2) which I imagine is partly why he was chosen as the Red Bull team principal. Now in F1 he's won 2 constructors titles so I'd say he's had a pretty good team principal career so far.

Adrian Newey may possibly be the main key to Red Bull's success, but Horner joined Red Bull a year before Newey so he must have been a part of bringing Newey to Red Bull and putting together this successful team which I'd say is a job well done as team principal. As for him being just a figurehead, here's quite a frank quote from Bernie Ecclestone:

Q: Bernie, you were your own boss. You owned the team. But Christian has to answer to Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz…
BE: I don’t think that Didi is stepping on Christian’s toes. Seriously, Christian is doing a super job and Didi is not the kind of idiot to interfere.

 

[racecub]

My heart wants to choose Whitmarsh because of his blatant favouritism of Jenson and his thinly disguised negativity towards Lewis........but I think he stops short of cheating and deliberately hampering his non favoured son. Which brings me to Briatore who did cheat...a lot. Yes he won, but cheating to do it? And the icing on the cake, asking one driver to endanger his life so the favoured son can win? .So its Briatore
Though I confess that I didnt know all the names on the list

EDIT: I cannot believe Ron Dennis has a vote after all he did for McLaren

 

[RasputinLives]

My heart wants to choose Whitmarsh because of his blatant favouritism of Jenson and his thinly disguised negativity towards Lewis........but I think he stops short of cheating and deliberately hampering his non favoured son. Which brings me to Briatore who did cheat...a lot. Yes he won, but cheating to do it? And the icing on the cake, asking one driver to endanger his life so the favoured son can win? .So its Briatore
Though I confess that I didnt know all the names on the list

EDIT: I cannot believe Ron Dennis has a vote after all he did for McLaren

You might be surprised there are some people that hate Ron Dennis more than Flavio and some people that think he's as big a cheat as Flavio. I personally have never liked either of the gentlemen in question as I think they'd step over their own grandmothers for the smallest of victories and then tell their Granny it wasn't them and they were framed by some form of conspiracy. However I would not vote for either as WORST team principle as despite me not liking them both of them have had success at what they do.

I suggested Niki Lauda as his stewarding of the Jaguar team in 2002 was a disastor - yes he was picking up the pieces from the awful Bobby Rahal but they actually had a worse season under him than they did the year before and if it wasn't for a lucky podium for Irvine in Italy it woould have been their worst season ever. He failed to replace the awful Pedro De La Rosa despite him already having one terrible year and he was unable to convince or give the confidence to the baord at Ford to keep investing in the team so that by the time he was made redundant at the end of the season 70 staff had already gone and the budget for the team cut which really spelt the begining of the end for the Jag team who of course did not imporve on a cut budget.

Still I guess without him we wouldn't have Red Bull!

 

[teabagyokel]

Christian Horner is doing something at Red Bull. That's why they pay him. But I would suggest to be the worst team principal, he would have to inhibit Red Bull's success, which is something that he is clearly not doing.

 

[Galahad]

If Horner is a puppet, and yet Marko can't get his way, I'm confused as to who is supposedly pulling the strings?

 

[siffert_fan]

My first impulse was to vote for either Dennis or Flavio B, mostly because they, along with Bernie and Max, seem to me to possess the biggest egos to ever appear in Formula 1 (and that is really saying something!).

I find it impossible to vote for Rahal as, within weeks of his hiring, Ford hired Lauda and placed him over Rahal. Therefore it isn't really possible to see how much Rahal contributed and how much was Lauda, even though he wasn't the titular Principal. Rahal did show one sign of brilliance: he signed up (or so he thought) Newey.

Frank Willams will be in the running if he doesn't get his team turned around soon. At the moment, he seems to be a bit like the Captain of the Titanic.

Having said all that, I will vote for the Toyota group. Never has so much been spent to accomplish so little.

 

[FB]

If this was a poll on "who do you most dislike in F1?" I could understand the votes for Briatore and even Christian Horner but it's supposed to be about the worst team principal which Horner and Briatore are palpably not. As I mentioned before I voted for Tom Wlakinshaw because a) he was a crap team principal who achieved nothing despite having various goes at various teams and b) I don't like him. He was also as crooked as Mr Crooked the crooked man who used a crooked stick to walk along a crooked lane.

If I were being totally honest the worst one on that list is almost certainly Alain Prost - he had the budget, the time and the reputation to achieve great things in F1 as a team owner and failed miserably.

 

[Andyoak]

FB, much as I agree with what you say about Prost (and suspect you may be right about Walkinshaw) I did vote for Fab.

He may have been successful but the means he employed to obtain that success were risible at best and probably criminal at worst. To allow those things to happen under his watch are inexcusable. That is what makes him the worst team principle.

Best / Worst shouldn't be measured by success / failure but how you conduct yourself in your business.

 

[Speshal]

Andy just summed up my entire post more eloquently that I could have done.

Asking a young driver to potentially risk his life (more than usual) and career....... unforgivable

 

[FB]

I think Nelson PIquet jnr was as much a party to crashgate as were Briatore and Symonds. I'm sure I read somewhere that it was Piquet's suggestion (but I'm open to correction).

 

[Viscount]

Best / Worst shouldn't be measured by success / failure but how you conduct yourself in your business.

Best and worst should be measured by success in my opinion, winning isn't a popularity contest.

I don't like Briatore as he is a 'the ends justify the means' type of person, but I still respect the fact that he did exactly what he was supposed to do as a team principal, utilise his resources to win championships

Also, FB's right about crashgate being Piquet's idea. In the court case Pat Symonds and an unnamed Renault employee who provided evidence both said it was Piquet's idea. Even if Piquet was influenced, he still made the choice on track to crash his car.

 

[racecub]

Best and worst should be measured by success in my opinion, winning isn't a popularity contest.

I don't like Briatore as he is a 'the ends justify the means' type of person, but I still respect the fact that he did exactly what he was supposed to do as a team principal, utilise his resources to win championships

Also, FB's right about crashgate being Piquet's idea. In the court case Pat Symonds and an unnamed Renault employee who provided evidence both said it was Piquet's idea. Even if Piquet was influenced, he still made the choice on track to crash his car.

Maybe, but the team principal should have given an unequivocal NO to the suggestion, not gone along with it!

 

[FB]

That's what made Flavio and the Renault team (at the time) winners. I hate to point it out but as Ron Dennis loves to say 2nd is the first of the losers. Unless you have that cut throat attitude, for example when Benneton knicked Schumie from Jordan, you not going to win much. I'm not saying I agreed with the actions but until Flav wised up and realised Piquet jnr was little more than walking ballast none of use knew any different, we might have had suspicions but no proof. Flavio just played the game wrong as he got caught when Piquet snr got upset at his son's sacking.

 

[Viscount]

Maybe, but the team principal should have given an unequivocal NO to the suggestion, not gone along with it!

Morally it's wrong, but they did what it took to win. It reminds me of players diving in football to get penalties.

Schumacher and Senna both intentionally crashed into other drivers which I think is worse yet their still considered to be 2 of Formula One's greatest ever drivers because of the championships they won. Briatore may have cheated (like many others in F1) but he still won 3 constructors' titles which is why I don't think he's anywhere near close to being the worst team principal in F1.

 

[Il_leone]

If Horner is a puppet, and yet Marko can't get his way, I'u confused as to who is supposedly pulling the strings?

See the situation of the STR drivers - Helmut gives his reasons and then Christian comes out and says Helmut is right blah blah and I say again Turkey 2010 last year when Horner blamed Vettel for the accident. THen Marko says its Webber's fault and suddenly Horner jumps and agrees with Marko

If Webber quits Red Bull Helmut will be the one to decide who drives alongside Vettel.


thats because in order to get the Renault engine Flavio did another one of his clever deals in offering Red Bull a cheaper engine if they would consider MArk Webber as well and deal with Dieter not Horner.

Horner is not hindering Red Bull's success yet if you are in the Vettel camp but if Hamilton was in the other car against Vettel not Webber there would be serious fireworks in the team he cannot handle.

 

[Bill Boddy]

No-one at Red Bull seems particularly interested in having Hamilton at Red Bull. He's the wrong nationality for a start.

 

[Il_leone]

Morally it's wrong, but they did what it took to win. It reminds me of players diving in football to get penalties.

Schumacher and Senna both intentionally crashed into other drivers which I think is worse yet their still considered to be 2 of Formula One's greatest ever drivers because of the championships they won. Briatore may have cheated (like many others in F1) but he still won 3 constructors' titles which is why I don't think he's anywhere near close to being the worst team principal in F1.

thats why I got a long list- naturally Briatore would be most people's hated list but as you can see other team principals are considered terrible for their poor decision making , team management and driver management and other infamous reasons

It surprises me that no one has voted for the useless Nick Fry ... and he was totally useless at HOnda and fortunate Ross Brawn knew what he was doing

 

[Il_leone]

No-one at Red Bull seems particularly interested in having Hamilton at Red Bull. He's the wrong nationality for a start.

Says whom ...certainly not Helmut or Christian unless one of the STR drivers becomes a sensation this season
Red Bull are sponsoring another British driver Lewis Williamson in the lower formula so nationality is not the issue

 

[Johnny Carwash]

Can i add Eric Broadley to the list as he was in charge of Mastercard Lola F1

 

[Galahad]

Horner is not hindering Red Bull's success yet if you are in the Vettel camp but if Hamilton was in the other car against Vettel not Webber there would be serious fireworks in the team he cannot handle.

So Horner is being criticised for not being able to handle a situation that hasn't happened yet, and may not ever happen? Seems a little harsh...

All winning teams have problems with their drivers, as we well know from history. It's easy to criticise Williams, Dennis, Whitmarsh et al for this reason, but usually this is 20:20 hindsight in action. However they handle it, either party (or both) will feel hard-done-by, and their fans in turn. Lovely Peter Sauber never gets criticism for this, but that's because his greater failure lies in not managing to create a winning team.