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What did Toto Wolff, Christian Horner and Guenther Steiner do before becoming Formula One principals

Gunther Steiner, Toto Wolff and Christian Horner

Three of the highest-profile bosses had racing careers before working in F1. Planet Sport looks at what Toto Wolff, Christian Horner and Guenther Steiner did before stepping up to the top jobs.

A winner of the Dubai 24 Hour, a founder of a junior racing team and an experienced worker in rally racing.
Principals like Toto Wolff, Christian Horner and Gunther Steiner are among the biggest names in F1.

Planet Sport takes a look at what they did before they moved up to F1.

Toto Wolff: Experienced racer

Susie Wolff, Toto Wolff's partner, is known for her racing abilities after competing in Formula Renault, Formula Three and then Formula One as a development driver for Williams in 2014.

What you may not know is that the Mercedes team principal himself drove in many racing categories before he went into management.

The Austrian began his racing career in 1992 in the Austrian Formula Ford Championship, eventually going on to win the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in his category back in 1994.
In 2002, Wolff switched to GT racing for the FIA GT Championship and finished in sixth place in the N-GT category, winning one race across the season.

Wolff ventured into more racing categories, finishing as runner-up in the Austrian Rally Championship in 2006.

Finally, his last notable racing achievement was taking part in the 2006 Dubai 24 Hour with a BMW car run by Duller Motorsport, with which they won the event.
It was not until 2009 that Wolff decided to venture into the world of F1 by buying a share of the Williams Formula One Team and joining the board of directors.

READ MORE: Susie Wolff calls on Formula 1 teams to help develop female drivers

Christian Horner: Junior team founder and racer

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner grew up karting and eventually earned a scholarship in Formula Renault in 1991 before entering the 1992 British Formula Renault Championship with Manor Motorsport, finishing that season as a race winner and the highest-placed rookie.

He then moved up to British Formula Three for 1993, finishing second in the Class B Championship for P1 Motorsport and winning five races.
In 1996 he raced in British Formula Two and moved up to Formula 3000 in 1997, founding the Arden team.
Horner set the team up using borrowed money, which included a loan from his father, and he convinced P1 Motorsport founder Roly Vincini to be his race engineer.
He bought a second-hand trailer for the team from Helmut Marko, who was at the time the head of the Red Bull Junior Team and now works closely with Horner at Red Bull as head of the driver development programme.
In his last competitive racing season (1998) Horner described how during a pre-season test at Estoril he knew it was time to quit.
Whilst following Juan Pablo Montoya through a high-speed corner he realised that he was "not capable of replicating the level of commitment" shown by the Colombian driver.
As a result, he decided to step back from driving at the end of the season to focus on developing the Arden team.
Horner stayed with Arden until 2005 when he was looking for a way into F1 and became team principal at Red Bull (previously Jaguar), at the age of 31, making him the youngest team principal on the grid.

Guenther Steiner: Rally experience

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner was born in Italy but moved to Belgium to begin a career as a mechanic in the World Rally Championship for Mazda Rally Team Europe from 1986 to 1988.
From there on, Steiner took on various roles in rallying and from 1989 to 1990 he worked as the assistant team manager for Top Run Srl.
He then moved on to become head of reconnaissance and later technical manager at Jolly Club from 1991 to 1996.

In 1997, Steiner managed Prodrive's Allstar Rally team winning the European Rally Championship with Krzysztof Holowczyc in the Subaru Impreza 555.

In 2000, he was promoted to director of engineering, where he worked under the Ford World Rally Team alongside drivers Colin McRae and most notably Carlos Sainz Sr, father of current Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr and two-time rally champion.
In 2001 Steiner made to the switch to F1 where he became the team principal of Jaguar racing until 2003.

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