Horner: 'We started the season hoping to challenge Mercedes'

Challenging Mercedes

The Race looks back on the season of Max Verstappen, and team boss Christian Horner also reflects. "Of course you start the season with the hope of challenging Mercedes. However, it was clear early on that they had made a big step. Then you have to adapt," says Horner.

During the season, Red Bull Racing as often happens, slowly but surely came closer to Mercedes. Especially at the Nürburgring, the team managed to make a big step, although it is not clear what exactly the adjustments were at that time. Verstappen in any case confirms the step forward that was made. “I think the bigger step was in Germany, where I think the rear felt quite a bit better.”

Made the car worse

Horner explains how the development went this season. "We went from a Barcelona-spec car, we never got to run the Melbourne spec. We had to unwind that back a bit to understand what we’d actually introduced because numerically everything within our tools was saying it was better it actually made the characteristics of the car worse.”

At its worst in winter

Verstappen agrees with Horner. According to the Dutchman, the car was at its worst during the winter test. When the season actually started Red Bull was confused. "We had a lot of new parts on the car from which we expected a lot. I do think there were a few positives but still, it was not all correlating like it should have.”