Red Bull boss Christian Horner contends Max Verstappen has been “making a key difference” in recent Formula 1 races amid his latest win at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Verstappen was pipped to pole position at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but he made a stellar start to pull alongside Lando Norris’ McLaren and gain the place.
But while George Russell capitalised on their squabble to seize the lead, Verstappen completed a pinpoint overtake around Russell’s outside at Turn 1 on the third lap.
The Dutchman opened up a seven-second gap as Norris was stuck behind Russell in the opening stint, which opened up to nine seconds as McLaren extended stints.
That proved decisive in the race’s outcome as a late charge saw Norris come up 2.2 seconds behind, with the Briton conceding he lost the race with the “quickest car.”
“I think today there was a few decisive moments,” Horner said. “Obviously we lost the pole by two-hundredths yesterday, we knew it’d be very tight with Lando.
“The start was crucial, we took the start on scrubbed rather than the new tyre because we wanted to have the new tyre as we thought we might need it for the undercut later.
“Max had a good start, got alongside Lando, some fairly robust racing where he’s on the grass going to Turn 1 which allowed George to pick his braking point and go around the outside.
“Then it was a race that was always going to be dominated around tyre wear, being quick to pass George was crucial.
“He pushed hard on that first lap or two to get the pass on George, as soon as the DRS opened, then immediately got into managing tyres and was able to build out a gap reasonably comfortably in that first stint, at that point we decided to go for an optimum race in terms of strategy in our stop laps, McLaren obviously extended, so they had an offset.
“So you look and think nine seconds is pretty decent but you know that the tyre offset six laps on Mediums and three or four on the Soft, those gaps come back at you pretty quickly.
“So today was about not making any mistakes, Max drove a perfect race, [with] well-executed pit stops.
“It’s all those small details that we knew Lando would come back towards us at the end of the race, but we thought we’d have enough in hand, and that’s the way it played out.”
Verstappen stated that being beaten to pole position again this weekend showed Red Bull needed to extract more speed to stop him from having to drive at the limit.
Horner revealed that Red Bull has a grasp on the areas it must enhance, but he commended Verstappen as being a vital component in Red Bull’s growing points lead.
“He’s always been fantastic under pressure, last year was a unicorn year and now it’s more normal year,” Horner added.
“It’s not normal to win all the races all the time and we’re having to fight very very hard for them, and Max is making a key difference.
“We know where we need to improve, we’re getting a better understanding of where our strengths and weaknesses are.
“And we’re doing enough at the moment to keep growing that championship lead.”
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