Horner: 'And yet we were the last to start on the 2022 car'

F1 News

25 July 2022 at 19:17
Last update 25 July 2022 at 21:16
16
  • GPblog.com

Max Verstappen took a particularly important victory for the championship in France. Red Bull Racing currently leads the championship by a wide margin and Verstappen also leaves his competition far behind. Team boss Christian Horner had not dared to dream of this performance at the start of the season.

Horner calls Red Bull performance phenomenal

Verstappen ran as much as 25 points ahead of Charles Leclerc with his victory at the French Grand Prix. Leclerc parked his Ferrari F1-75 in the wall while leading; an extra-large defeat for the Monegasque, an extra-large victory for the Dutchman. On the scoreboard it is also Red Bull Racing that excels. At the start of the season Red Bull were still reckoning with a particularly strong Ferrari and their own reliability problems, but after twelve races in 2022 no fewer than eight have been won by Red Bull's men, Sergio Perez and Verstappen. It exceeds Horner's wildest dreams.

To F1.com the Red Bull team boss said: "If you had told me last year that with the biggest rule change in 40 years and with the efforts we put in for the championship last year, we would be sitting here now with eight GP wins, two sprint race wins and that we would be leading both championships with 63 and 82 points, that would exceed my wildest dreams." Horner goes on to emphasise how strong his team is: "Taking into account that we were probably the last team to focus entirely on the development of this 2022 car, it's really a phenomenal job."

Horner sad that we didn't see Verstappen and Leclerc fight on

The race in France had a very positive impact on the numbers for the team. Verstappen increased his lead over Leclerc to 63 points. Horner regrets not seeing the two fight it out on track: "It's a shame we didn't see how this might have unfolded. The second half of the race would have been the opposite of the first half. We had the position on the track and Ferrari would have the advantage of slightly newer tyres."