Imola ‘one of Red Bull’s best ever F1 results’ – Horner

Red Bull’s result at Formula 1’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was among the best in its history, according to team boss Christian Horner.

Red Bull controlled much of the weekend, with Max Verstappen claiming pole position, the win in both Sprint and the grand prix, while he also recorded the race’s fastest lap.

Verstappen was backed up by team-mate Sergio Perez, who held second throughout the race, and followed the reigning World Champion home.

It gave Red Bull its first 1-2 since the 2016 Malaysian Grand Prix and enabled the team to reduce Ferrari’s advantage in the Constructors’ Championship to 11 points.

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“It’s fantastic, and it’s one point off a maximum score over the whole weekend,” said Horner.

“1-3 [in Sprint], 1-2 [in the race], fastest lap… it was just the rebound that we needed after the disappointment of Australia a couple of weeks ago.

“It was a phenomenal team performance because we took a bit of a risk coming into the weekend with a couple of small parts that we introduced to the car – which is always tricky when you’ve only got one session – but we attacked the weekend from the word go and both drivers have been unbelievable.

“Both Max and Checo have driven brilliantly this weekend and that 1-2 finish is all credit to the team. A brilliant pit stop strategy, but also back in the factory in Milton Keynes.

“The hard effort and work after the disappointment of Australia, to come back with a result like that in Imola was one of our best ever results.”

Horner believes Red Bull was able to hit the ground running in a manner that eluded it during the previous round in Australia.

“I think as we saw in Melbourne the tyres, there’s an operating window within them,” he said.

“I think the set-up this weekend, we got it right and we could see that Charles [Leclerc] was struggling a little bit more with the front tyres here than we were, both in [Saturday’s] race and starting to happen in the latter part of [Sunday’s] race.

“That just gave us the upper hand and Max was able to manage the race perfectly.

“Checo was able to build a gap to Charles and manage that gap, and at no point – other than one trip across the grass with Checo – did we really come under too much pressure.”