Horner acknowledges Verstappen exit speculations: 'We have issues'

19:18, 19 Apr

byNorberto Mujica

Christian Horner has reacted to the 'noise' that puts Max Verstappen elsewhere other than Red Bull Racing, and acknowledges the Austrian team is currently struggling.

Regarding the speculation surrounding a potential Verstappen exit from Red Bull Racing, Horner dismissed those as 'noise' and reasserted the Dutch champion's committment to the Austrian racing stable.

"Everybody's focused on the car, you know, moving forward. There's an awful lot of noise and that's really what it is, is noise. So, Max is working super hard with the engineers. Everybody just trying to find performance. So, of course, there's always going to be speculation, but, you know, we're very comfortable."

"Well of course, you know, the heat of the moment after a race, there's always going to be an emotive reaction. And I think that Max has made it very, very clear that he's part of the team. And we're all in it together, we all want to get some performance back onto the car."

Horner then looks to Japan two race weekends ago. "[To] get into the position that we were two weeks ago in Japan. So we've just got to pick up a bit of momentum."

"We know we've got some issues, we're working very hard on them, hopefully we've got some solutions coming over the next few races," referring to the upgrades planned for Imola, developed to address the issues that hinder Red Bull and Verstappen's championship bid.

Horner rules out Red Bull win in Jeddah in the face of McLaren's temperature F1 dominance

McLaren looked very strong right out of the blocks in Saudi Arabia, showing their particular dominace in high temperature tracks, like Jeddah. Horner notes the papaya team's superiority and highlights Red Bull's fight is behind them, with Yuki Tsunoda also getting a mention by the British team boss.

"I think in this temperature the McLarens look out of reach. What we've seen through all the practice so far, they are a step ahead of the rest. But behind them, it's incredibly tight Mercedes, Ferrari, ourselves and then you get the odd Pierre Gasly or Alex Albon or Carlos Sainz jumping and of course Yuki is also really finding his feet now."