Max Verstappen bit back at what he described as a “weird question” when asked whether Red Bull’s upturn in form in the latter part of this year’s Formula 1 season is related to Christian Horner’s departure from the team.
The Milton Keynes-based squad has enjoyed a remarkable turnaround since the summer break, with Verstappen scoring three wins and a 100 per cent podium record.
Verstappen’s results swing has seen him go from title nomansland to a realistic but outside bet at retaining his crown, clawing back a great deal of the huge chunk of points he had been behind both McLaren drivers by.
The upturn in performance from the team’s much-maligned RB21 has largely come about since Horner departed the team after the British Grand Prix.
Since then, it has been promulgated from within the Red Bull camp that Verstappen has been afforded more input in car set-up, amid new boss Laurent Mekies’ arrival on the pit wall.
But when asked ahead of this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix if the resurgence from Red Bull would have been possible had Horner remained in charge, Verstappen took exception.
“I find that a really weird question,” he replied to media including Motorsport Week.
“I don’t know why that would be suddenly now that we closed 49 points like that. I don’t know. You can fill it in yourself.”
When pushed as to whether it is in relation to strategic differences, Verstappen refused to elaborate, and praised the car’s improvement across much of the circuits it’s recently raced on.
“I think we’ve done a very good job the last few races,” he said. “Yeah, what else can I say? I mean, we try everything that we can.
“Car’s been good at some places, maybe not so good on others. But that’s it.”
Verstappen shrugs off loss of F1 dominance
Since his first title win in 2021, Verstappen has enjoyed the most purple of patches, along with his team, taking the last three championships largely at a canter.
Despite making up a huge amount of ground on Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri since Zandvoort, Verstappen is still set to relinquish his title to one of the two.
The Dutchman appeared relaxed and content about his likely loss of World Champion status for the first time in four years, accepting McLaren has improved too much for him to make a significant challenge across the whole campaign.
“I mean, honestly, for me, I’m not really too stressed about it in general,” he claimed.
“I mean, if I knew everything in advance, I would have been a billionaire now. So I mean, that’s just how life goes.
“If you would know things in advance or how to do things better, yeah, I mean, it makes your life a lot easier. But people always learn, make mistakes, that we’re not robots.
“That’s just part of life. That’s why I’m not too disappointed about it. I know that my team always gave it 100 per cent from the start of the season till now. What else can you do?
“I mean, we really tried everything. We’ve had some really great years and this one is just not as good as the years before. But that that happens.
“You know, Formula 1 is a very competitive world and in particular, one team this year [McLaren] has done a better job than us.”
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