Horner feels pressure from Norris: 'We have to work harder lately'

F1 News

Horner on Max Verstappen team radio
24 June at 16:01
5
  • Tygo Bekkema

Red Bull Racing today has to fight much harder for wins than in previous years. This demands more from the drivers in the first place, of course, but also from the engineers. During the race, there was a minor miscommunication between Verstappen and his race engineer about a setting on the steering wheel. According to Christian Horner, Red Bull team boss, that moment was indicative of the extra effort that needs to be made.

Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen's race engineer, asked his driver to activate setting 'strat 10' on the steering wheel. However, the Dutchman did not understand this and so it had to be repeated again, leading to a little bit of frustration for the three-time world champion.

Horner enjoyed race fight

Horner sees the incident as a logical continuation of the course of events in recent weeks. "Both Lando and Max were going flat out because we get the GPS data as all the teams do of the other cars. You can see, we could see Lando wasn't saving anything in turns three and nine and the last two turns. So then the information is given to Max to say, 'You can start pushing', and he's got such capacity in his driving.

"He knows the stint length, he knows what he needs to take out of the tyres and that's where he really is a master class. But that little bit of irritation where he's got GP to repeat it, it just seemed to be a little tiny sign of that," continued Horner.

Finally, the Red Bull Racing frontman has some words of praise for Verstappen, stating that such miscommunication may become more common in the future. "I think the radio hasn't been great this weekend, we've had some issues and you could hear in his voice he was pushing. He was driving flat out."

This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy