Top 5 F1 team principals on the current grid

One of the more thankless jobs in F1 is the role of a team principal. When a team is winning, it is the driver that gets the most applause, but whenever things go wrong, more often than not, fingers are pointed at the team principal. Arguably, this is what makes this job the most stressful one on the grid because there is little acclaim and lots of criticism, with constant pressure to extract the best performance out of your team.

Formula 1 will feature new combinations on the grid next season, with the team principals at Ferrari, McLaren, Alfa Romeo, and Williams switching up so far. Who are the top 5 team principals on the current grid? Let's find out!

#5 Fred Vasseur (Ferrari)

The new Ferrari team principal is not a household name for the more casual observers of the sport. Having said that, the former Alfa Romeo team principal not only boasts an impressive resume from before he joined the sport but also managed to achieve Alfa Romao/Sauber's best result in the last decade as their team principal this year.

Vasseur was already a veteran of the sport before he made his debut in F1 with Renault. A co-founder of ART racing, one of the most successful racing teams in the junior categories, Vasseur has been a winner in every category he has been a part of. With Ferrari, he has the opportunity to make that happen in Formula 1 as well. It will be interesting to see how he fares at Maranello.

#4 Otmar Szafnaeur (Alpine F1)

Losing Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri this season was not the best showcase of what Otmar could do in an F1 team. Having said that, it would be utterly foolish to ignore how impressively he handled the Alonso-Ocon dynamic during the 2022 F1 Brazilian GP this season or that Alpine finished P4 in the championship.

Moreover, his previous stint at Force India does not get the kind of acclaim that it deserves. The Silverstone-based squad was consistently outperforming every team in the midfield at a fraction of their budget. Otmar has made a career out of running his teams efficiently on a shoestring budget, and him at Alpine in the budget-cap era could only mean great things for the team.

#3 Andreas Seidl (Alfa Romeo/Sauber/Audi)

It speaks volumes of Seidl's credentials that even when he left McLaren, there was no bad blood and Zak Brown was accommodating in the way things were handled. Seidl has just completed a very successful stint at McLaren, where he spearheaded the team's reversal of fortunes. To say the least, McLaren was in the dumps when Seidl joined. The star driver in Fernando Alonso had left, the team had Carlos Sainz coming off an average year at Renault and a rookie wildcard in Lando Norris.

To add to this, the Renault power unit did not result in a change of fortunes for the team in 2018 as it had hoped and McLaren lost out to Renault that season. The 2019 F1 season, however, saw a change of guard. The team was more positive, the driver lineup was more dynamic and all of it did help in contributing to better overall performance. The season saw McLaren score a podium for the first time since 2014 and gain momentum. Since then, the team has grown from strength to strength and Seidl has played a key role in this.

From the 2023 F1 season onwards, Seidl will take on a new challenge where he will start the groundwork for Audi's first steps in the sport. It will be interesting to see how his new project goes.

#2 Toto Wolff (Mercedes)

Many would not agree with Wolff as second on this list, but that should not in any way diminish Wolff's impact on Mercedes and his almost mythical status as one of the best team principals ever. Wolff spearheaded arguably one of the most dominant reigns by any F1 team in the sport. Before him, Ferrari had gone on a 5-year dominant run. Wolff went one better and bagged 8 consecutive constructors titles.

There's still a lot more to be written in the Toto Wolff story in F1 but for now, the Austrian does find himself one of the most respected team principals in the history of F1.

#1 Christian Horner (Red Bull)

A record of 6 drivers' and 5 constructors' championships is very impressive. What does, however, get missed in all of this is that Red Bull completely lost its way at the start of the Turbo-Hybrid era in 2014. The power unit supplier became such a huge liability that Red Bull was on the verge of leaving F1 if a solution was not found.

It took 7 years, but ultimately that solution was found and the Milton Keynes-based squad won the drivers' title in 2021 and then both titles in 2022, thanks in part to Christian Horner. What makes Horner stand out on the F1 grid is the fact that he was the man that led the team from its inception and took it to the top of the sport. Horner already has a 'Hall of Fame' career but the second phase of a resurgence in a different set of regulations is what is helping him separate himself from some of the best to ever take the team principal's job.