Red Bull team boss Christian Horner admits the defeat at the Singapore Grand Prix hurt the team – and no one more than Max Verstappen. He had already announced a dominant victory in Japan in advance, as Horner explains.
“I played padel tennis with Max on Wednesday. He was really excited and told me: ‘I want to win the race by 20 seconds.’ And he got within seven tenths of a second.”
19.387 seconds was rather average for Verstappen this year. However, there was also a safety car phase in the race. And Horner says it could have been more than 20 seconds “if there hadn’t been a blue flag at the end.”
He showed how motivated Verstappen was after the Singapore defeat in the first training session, as Horner says: “You could see that from the first lap. He was 1.8 seconds faster than everyone else on hard tires. And everyone else was At this point in time on medium or soft tires.”
“He was fully focused on the race. It’s a track that he loves and that he enjoys. And I think it’s the ultimate test for the drivers here. So it was an outstanding performance. I think his laps in the Qualifying, especially the last one, are among the best qualifying laps of all time.” Verstappen secured pole position with a lead of 0.581 seconds.
“Then he implemented that after a less than optimal start, gained a very confident lead and controlled the race.”
Comparisons with Michael Schumacher are getting louder
That’s exactly what distinguishes champions: that they get up again after defeats and immediately find their way back to their old strength. That’s why comparisons between Verstappen and the greatest racing drivers in history are increasing.
The name Michael Schumacher, who was similarly determined, often comes up. Horner said: “He just has this inner hunger, this determination and these enormous abilities. But he channels that and doesn’t let himself be distracted by the intricacies of Formula 1.”
“He’s just a real racing driver. When he doesn’t drive in the real world, he drives in the virtual one. And that’s his passion, that’s what he wants.” Michael Schumacher also liked to go to the kart track when he wasn’t testing. For Verstappen it’s sim racing.
Would it only be logical to attack Schumacher’s records? “I don’t know if he focuses on them very much. I think they mean a lot to him when he achieves them, but they don’t dictate his path.”
“He’s a winner. He loves to win. And you could see that fighting spirit from the first lap in FP1 this weekend.”
Will Singapore’s weakness return?
One variable that could explain Red Bull’s weakness in Singapore is finally off the table with the Suzuka victory: the ban on flexible underbody. “Nobody really believed that the subfloor was the problem,” assures Horner.
It is therefore clear that the weakness was route-specific. Is Red Bull at risk of something like this happening again during the course of the season? “It’s impossible to predict. Last year Brazil suddenly became a problem for us. Now we have a lot of sprint races ahead of us, almost every other race is a sprint race.
“You only have one session to set up the car. That can cause a lot of pressure.” Especially if you didn’t get the set-up right in the first training session, it’s raining or the teams go out at the wrong time and, for example, drive into a break, as he emphasizes.
“That could be an interesting factor for the next races,” believes Horner. But one thing is also certain: a lot could be compensated for with a Max Verstappen in the form of Suzuka.