Christian Horner has said he believes Red Bull are operating at the highest level in their history after Max Verstappen maintained their unbeaten run this season with a dominant win at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Horner expressed his confidence in the team for their chances of a further victory at the British Grand Prix this weekend and that they would keep working towards achieving Formula One’s first season of a team going unbeaten.
Verstappen won at the Red Bull Ring with another dominant performance. Even when pit stops dropped him behind the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz he swiftly passed them to regain the lead and the win. Before a late stop for fresh tyres to take the fastest lap he had a 21-second advantage over the field.
The world champion has seven wins now from nine races with his teammate Sergio Pérez victorious in the other two. Their car has been bulletproof. With four consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ titles with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2013 they are no strangers to success but this season Horner believes they are better than ever.
“I think we are operating at the highest level that this team has seen in our 19-year history, it is a halcyon period for the team,” said the Red Bull team principal. “Of course we will go to Silverstone with confidence but also acutely aware that it is very easy to drop the ball and for variables that are sometimes beyond your control. What was impressive in Austria was that throughout all the conditions we have stayed on top of them and executed a very good grand prix.”
Asked whether the team could retain its advantage to close out a clean sweep, Horner insisted the team would continue to pursue the goal and emphasised the effort that had gone into their dominance.
“This is our best run of in-season results since Sebastian Vettel in 2013, we have won nine races in a row in a season,” he said. “We obviously want to keep this roll going as long as we can but how long? Only time will tell.
“It’s down to every single department, to achieve results like this it’s not just about the race team it is about all the activity that goes on behind the scenes in the factory. You have to work as a team as one team. That’s where we have been incredibly strong.”
The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, acknowledged after the race that Verstappen’s performances had put the 25-year-old with two world championships under his belt as a contender to enter the same class as the best drivers of modern F1.
“It’s clearly one of the phases in history where just one car with a driver is very dominant,” he said. “We have had that with Lewis [Hamilton] and with Sebastian in the Red Bull and before with Michael [Schumacher] in the Ferrari.”
Verstappen leads his teammate Pérez by 81 points going into the British Grand Prix and is already on course to secure his third world championship. Mercedes are bringing a swathe of upgrades to Silverstone, however, and are optimistic Lewis Hamilton and George Russell will enjoy an improved performance at their home grand prix.
The race in Austria was overshadowed by a swathe of drivers exceeding track limits, largely at turns nine and 10. A large number of penalties were issued in-race but after Aston Martin lodged a protest post-race the FIA, Formula One’s governing body, revealed it still had a further 1,200 potential offences to check and that it had been unable to deal with them during the race.
The FIA did so and a further 12 penalties were issued across eight drivers resulting in the final classification of 14 of the 19 drivers that finished the race changing almost five hours after the flag had fallen. The FIA stated that it would recommend the Red Bull Ring reformat the corner so that it has a gravel trap to prevent drivers going wide. Previously this has not been done because of the objections of MotoGP which also uses the circuit.
Horner was critical of the situation which he believed reflected badly on the sport. “When you’ve got so many infringements it’s a bit amateurish,” he said. “I think a strip of gravel or something as a deterrent to run out there. The circuit invites you to go there, so that’s something that needs to be looked at for next year. The argument is always MotoGP but you’ve got to have something that’s flexible purely for Formula One only.”
Wolff also argued that some action had to be taken to prevent a repeat of the events next year. “Everybody is really in the worst possible situation. The regulations and the race track and the FIA try to enforce them to the best of their ability,” he said. “Surely for the fans, the spectators, the teams, the drivers, it’s super frustrating to keep those penalties coming.
“There’s only two solutions: either you come back to sausage kerbs that break the drivers and the cars, and then nobody should complain. Or just remove them all and you let them race the fastest line – this is what Niki Lauda always said. You may come close to some of the rails but we need to find a solution for the interests of the track.”
