Horner praises Verstappen's sportsmanship: "He did the right thing"

Very strong pace from Mercedes

"Mercedes had a very strong pace at the start of the race," Horner told Racer.com on the Grand Prix. "We couldn't break away and create a gap. Their degradation looked impressive. Max could never gain more than two seconds from Lewis [Hamilton]."

Mercedes goes for the undercut and manages to take over the lead in the race. In the final laps, Verstappen gets even closer to Hamilton quickly. "We had a better tyre for the last stint, but unfortunately Lewis had just enough to hold on".

Verstappen's overtaking manoeuvre

Eventually, Verstappen does manage to overtake the world champion, but as he runs wide in turn four in the process, the Dutchman has to give back his leading position. "Max was very sportive and gave it back immediately", Horner praises his driver.

There was a brief discussion about not giving the place back and building up a gap of at least five seconds to be able to collect a possible penalty, but that was not an option according to Horner. "We had an instruction from race control to give the place back immediately. There is no guarantee that we would get the five seconds as a penalty. He did the right thing."

Exciting battle for the championship

Although he baulks at failing to win, Horner heads to Italy with a positive feeling. "The great thing for Formula 1 is that it looks like the two teams are close. It was a great race, a tough race to lose, but congratulations to Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton. Hopefully, we can make things difficult for them during all 23 races in the championship."