Christian Horner has been around for so long it's easy to forget that, compared to his peers, he's a relative spring chicken.
He realised from an early age that he was much more likely to find success in running a racing team rather than driving for one. After quitting his own on-track career in his 20s, he formed his own team in Formula 3000 and found enough success to get the team principal job when Red Bull bought Jaguar Racing and entered the 2005 Formula 1 season.
It means he is approaching 20 years in charge of the team and is yet to reach his 50th birthday. Only James Vowles is younger than Horner of the current crop of team principals and, a little over three months into the top job at Williams, has much less experience in the role.
Of course, racing is not the only focus of someone leading an F1 team. Especially when leading one of the top performing outfits, paddock politics must be skilfully negotiated and used to your advantage whenever possible.
Horner has become particularly adept at that side of the game over the years. From afar it often looks as though he takes pleasure from it, but he insists that is not the case. "Not really," he replied immediately when Mirror Sport asked if he enjoys that part of the job.
"For me, I'm a racer and the rest is a necessary evil that goes with it. Formula 1 is one of the biggest sports in the world – there's a lot at stake and a lot of money involved. It's high stakes and you've got to play a smart game."
His Red Bull team dominated the sport between 2010 and 2013 – a run which came to an end with the advent of hybrid engines in F1. It was Mercedes who then took full control of the constructors' championship for eight consecutive years.
The 2021 season in particular provoked the rivalry between the two teams, as Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton fought tooth and nail to beat each other to the drivers' title. That battle was reflected in the relationship between Horner and Toto Wolff, neither of whom shied away from taking a public swipe at the other.
There hasn't been too much on-track fighting between the two teams of late, with Red Bull a cut above the rest right now and Mercedes not as competitive as they are used to being. Horner insists he has a lot of respect for the Silver Arrows but hinted that beating them still feels a little sweeter than getting the better of the others.
He added: "Mercedes are a great team based just up the road from us. There's a strong rivalry between the two teams. They dominated the sport for such a long period of time and set the bar very high and that was something we had to aspire to.
"The team has really risen to the challenge of that and we've gone from being the hunter to being the hunted. We went through the period they've had a few years back and it's tough. You have very few friends when you're winning."
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