Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was full of praise for Verstappen following a dominant weekend for the team around the Suzuka circuit at the 2024 Japanese GP, in which they secured a 1-2 in both qualifying and the race, bouncing back “emphatically” after a disappointing weekend in Melbourne last time out.
At the front, it was the usual Max Verstappen masterclass, as he never even looked remotely in threat from any of the drivers behind him, no less his team-mate Sergio Perez, as he went on to win the race with a gap of over 12 seconds to the Mexican.
Speaking to selected media after the race in Japan, team principal and CEO Christian Horner explained how it was “important” for Red Bull to bounce back strongly in Japan after their sub-par race day in Melbourne, where Verstappen retired with a brake issue and Perez could only manage a lowly fifth place:
“It was great to bounce back, you know, after the DNF in Australia and, you know, after such a great start to the season, it was important to bounce back quickly and I think that we’ve done that emphatically here in Suzuka this weekend.
“It’s a great performance. We had a front row lockout, one-two finish, fastest lap and the fastest pit stop, so overall a great team performance.”
And whilst it all worked out in the end, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the Austrian squad, as they appeared to struggle in long-run pace – especially in comparison with the two Ferrari cars – in FP3. Horner said some set-up changes were made in order to solve that, along with warmer ambient and track temperatures on Sunday coming in clutch for the RB20:
“I think speaking with the drivers, the cars just got better and better through the race and so I think definitely that maybe the temperature helped a little, the setup changes I think were beneficial as well.
“We don’t know how much fuel Ferrari actually run on Friday, so to denote exactly what was the difference on those long runs, but definitely the engineering team did a great job in tidying up the deficiency on Friday into an advantage on Sunday.
“I think actually the red flag helped them reset their front wings after they probably overcompensated, so that was interesting. So the circuit was in quite different shape to where the long run had been on Friday, but for us I thought it was a very well executed race, no dramas, no issues.”
Speaking of his drivers, Horner didn’t hold back in his praise, and even mentioned how he had to “shut” his eyes in some of Perez’s ballsy moves into 130R, as the Mexican made his way through the field after his pit stop:
“I thought Checo in particular has had a strong weekend where to qualify within a tenth of his team mate here, his race pace was strong obviously, he had the disadvantage of having to come back through the traffic.
“There was a couple of moments where I must admit I had my eyes shut as he went into 130R. You need to do it there, can’t you wait till the straight? He didn’t look like he had three kids when he made that move.”
The 50-year-old also spared some thoughts for Max Verstappen’s “astute” race and tyre management abilities, hinting at perhaps there being even more pace in the tank for the Dutchman should he get ran closer by the competition in the next few races:
“I think [Max] is in great shape, he’s changed trainer over the winter, he’s fit, he’s lean and the car’s in a great window and you can hear the capacity, the spare capacity he has in the car, he’s wanting to know about not just who’s behind him but who’s behind that as well and what times are they doing and the capacity he has is very impressive so he’s in the form that he had last year, he’s just carried through.
“He’s become very astute at managing the tyre and the way that he managed to extend the tyre life is very impressive, we saw that in the first stint, in the second stint he did a very good job as well, so yeah, he’s got a very wise head on still pretty young shoulders.”
