Verstappen now the focus of Red Bull

After Daniel Ricciardo’s decision to leave Red Bull in favour of a fresh start at Renault, It left Red Bull with the decision to promote Pierre Gasly to the senior team alongside Verstappen.

With his five Grand Prix wins Verstappen may be the younger of the two but is the more experienced.

"Max is now the experienced one. So the team will be looking towards him more now," Horner said to Dutch publication Formule 1.

"Pierre of course has the potential to develop and make life difficult for Max. Hopefully they’ll push each other and help to get the best out of each other, just like Max and Daniel did."

Horner also admitted that he still struggles to wrap his head around Ricciardo’s decision to leave the team, even after he and Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz did the best they could to keep him.

"I’m still surprised, but I respect that he wanted something new, But I think he’d already made his choice by then. Whether he would take the same decision now? I don’t know.”

"But he made his choice and we are very happy with Pierre."