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Red Bull boss Christian Horner has commended Max Verstappen for the way he's integrated within the team and shown commitment to making improvements. The 2025 F1 season has been a tough one so far for the team and the driver. For the driver, he's coming into the season with the objective of picking up his fifth consecutive title. For the team, the focus is on reclaiming the lost constructors' championship that went to McLaren last season.
In terms of car performance, however, the start has not been that good. While Max Verstappen did get a P2 finish in Australia and was P4 in China, the gap is slowly increasing.
McLaren has quite clearly the best package on the grid right now, and both of its drivers are pushing each other to a higher ceiling. During this time, Verstappen is making sure that he secures the best possible result from every race weekend and keeps himself in contention.
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Team boss Christian Horner specifically paid tribute to Max Verstappen for the kind of dedication he's shown with the team. Talking about how entrenched he is now within the squad, Horner told Sky Sports:
"Max is working as hard as I've ever seen him. He's more integrated into the engineering group than I've ever seen and, as he said, he's enjoying that aspect. He's not getting super stressed and is working with the engineers, 'what about this, this is what I'm experiencing as a driver, this is where I need the lap time' and that's the only way collectively we can get performance."
When questioned if the lack of performance from Red Bull means that the team could be looking to shift focus to the 2026 season, Horner said:
"It's only race two, you can't be that defeatist. We are eight points behind in the Drivers' Championship after two races and there's everything to play for. Last year teaches you, you can start as strong as you like but it's how you finish. We have great strength and depth in our team, everybody in the company knows we have a bit of pace to find. We have the tools and people to do that, it's just unpicking it. We got some very good data out of today."
Red Bull boss feels the team overcompensated the impact of degradation for Max Verstappen's car
Max Verstappen had an intriguing race in China where the driver was quite comfortably in P6 but not in a position to challenge the cars in front of him. In the second stint, after a certain point, it suddenly changed, and the Red Bull came alive.
During the later stages, he would jump both Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton (Lewis pitted for fresh tires), and would end the race in P4. Horner felt that maybe the team was spooked by the excessive degradation that Verstappen suffered in the sprint and hence overcompensated. He added:
"That first stint was where we gave away all the time. Max came into the pit stop 18 seconds behind Oscar and at the chequered flag he was 16 seconds behind, so on the hard tyre we were competitive. Maybe we overcompensated based on the degradation we saw yesterday. For sure, we need to find more pace because life is easier. But Max drove another great race. A fourth place and important points but we know we have more to do."
Max Verstappen is currently eight points behind Lando Norris in the championship, but the biggest worry would be the fact that Red Bull does not appear to have the legs on McLaren in any specific area.
