Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has a more positive view of Max Verstappen’s recent performances in the RB21 than his Red Bull colleagues. While advisor Helmut Marko detects ‘a technical lag’ in the Red Bull car and Max Verstappen himself finds the car ‘difficult to drive’, the British team boss labels the RB21 as ‘not a bad car’.
Max Verstappen currently has 36 points to his name, placing him second in the drivers’ championship. This is an impressive achievement by the Dutchman, especially since the RB21, in Verstappen’s own words, is ‘difficult to drive’. During the GP China, Verstappen was even able to overtake Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari on hard tyres and match the lap times of the two McLarens at the front.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner also witnessed the speed of the RB21 in the last twenty laps of the GP China. “We reduced the gap to the winner (Oscar Piastri, ed.) by two seconds,” the team boss tells Auto, Motor und Sport. “The car was better on the hard tyres. Not as good as it should be, but there was still a positive trend to be seen.”
‘Not a bad car’
While advisor Helmut Marko previously stated that the RB21 has ‘a technical lag’, Horner seems to defend the car more. “Max was only 0.176 seconds off the pole position (in Shanghai, ed.). And if we hadn’t been cautious in the early stages of the race, we could have ended up on the podium. Just like in Melbourne, we were strong again in the second half of the race. So you can’t call it a bad car.”
