Horner: Verstappen impressive with leadership from within the car

Red Bull Racing started the season with the best car on the grid, but after an upgrade at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the development of their RB20 went wayward.

With McLaren finding the sweet spot with their MCL38, Max Verstappen came under extreme pressure from Lando Norris, but the Dutchman eventually managed to finish the job and secure his fourth consecutive F1 title.

Speaking in an interview with Motorsport.com, Christian Horner revealed that his team struggled in correlation between the factory and on track, which made Verstappen's feedback even more crucial.

He said: "It almost felt like something changed dramatically. Suddenly three other teams became competitive, and we suddenly started to experience some issues that became very limiting.

"Then it was a question of ‘and then your tools don't correlate with what's going on on track’. And that's when the driver really becomes a key element.

"And Max never panicked," Horner claimed. "Even on the tough days, he spent the long hours with the engineers really rolling his sleeves up and getting stuck in. Working behind the scenes on the simulator, spending the time with vehicle dynamicists and aerodynamicists just talking through ‘OK, this is where you need to focus, this is where the key issue is with this one’, based on what he's feeling.

"When your tools don't tie in with the circuit, the best sense of that you've got is the driver. And that's where Max was hugely impressive this year – the leadership that he inspired from within the car for the direction that we needed to take to address some of the issues," he explained.

Horner went on highlighting another aspect of Verstappen's personality that helped him lead the team in the right direction as they tried to sort out the RB20.

He said: "He is just very straight to the point of what are the limiting factors and what are the characteristics that the car is giving him that are limiting him from going quicker. So, he will pinpoint very clearly: ‘This is where there is lap time, focus on this area.’

"During the middle part of the season, the tools weren't really correlating with the circuit, and that's where he had to play a very key role in giving the engineers the key focal areas of where they needed to put time and effort to improve.

"And we've then seen at the back end of the year performance start to come back on the car," Horner concluded.

While he went through a winless run that lasted ten races after his victory in Spain, Verstappen was back on the top step of the podium after a masterclass in wet weather driving in the 2024 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

And while the rain usually levels the performance between cars, Verstappen's win in the Qatar Grand Prix in the dry showed Red Bull were able to fix some of the issues that marred the RB20 midseason.

Can Red Bull ensure the RB21 will be an improvement over the RB20? Time will tell...