Red Bull boss Christian Horner described his team’s form this season as “mind-blowing” after Max Verstappen’s latest display of dominance at Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Verstappen romped to his eighth consecutive victory and 10th of the season to maintain Red Bull’s total grip on Formula One after 12 of 22 races.
Asked about the prospects of completing an unbeaten season, Horner said: “I’m not going to project that far ahead. We’ll come back after the break and try to keep this amazing momentum going.”
Photo: AFP
Formula One is to shut down for three weeks and return at the end of the month with Verstappen’s home Dutch Grand Prix, where he would seek to equal former Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel’s 2013 record of nine straight wins.
Verstappen’s 45th career victory lifted him 125 points clear of teammate Sergio Perez in the title race while in the constructors’ championship, Red Bull lead with 503 points to Mercedes on 247.
On Sunday, Perez was second — Red Bull’s fifth one-two of the season — and he has a 40-point lead over Fernando Alonso in the standings.
Horner praised the team for their work in winning all 12 races this year.
“It’s all about teamwork and everyone doing their bit,” he said. “It’s what the team has done in the first part of this year and it’s why we remain unbeaten so far. It’s mind-blowing.”
Verstappen said his latest demonstration of dominance “was really enjoyable” especially as he had started sixth on the grid.
“It’s a new spot, that’s for sure — P6. I knew that we had a great car. It was just about surviving turn one. We made all the right moves,” he said.
Nevertheless, Red Bull suffered a second trophy malfunction in a week after the one handed to Verstappen was broken after a celebratory team photograph.
In Hungary, on July 23, the porcelain race winner’s trophy handed to Verstappen toppled off the podium and smashed after McLaren’s Lando Norris popped his champagne by bashing the bottle on the ground.
“It’s broken again, the trophy’s broken again,” Verstappen shouted in footage posted by Red Bull on Instagram.
Video showed team members rushing toward the camera as others sprayed cans of Red Bull. As they ran, a pit board toppled onto the trophy placed in front of it.
“Ready for summer-BREAK,” the team wrote on Instagram, with the video showing team members trying to reassemble it. “Don’t worry we could rebuild this one and it’s on its way to Milton Keynes.”
Perez led for much of the early part of the race.
“It was a good race for the team. We had a great start, to get through Charles, and I was doing my own race — but Max came through pretty fast on the second stint. There was nothing I could do.”
Pole-sitter Charles Leclerc was third for Ferrari ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton who clocked the fastest lap.
“It was pretty good for us in terms of pace, but looking at Red Bull we have a lot of work to do,” Leclerc said.
Such was Verstappen’s superiority on Sunday that he had time to tease his race engineer over the team radio.
As Gianpiero Lambiase warned him about degradation and to conserve his tires, he joked that he might go faster instead — and take an extra pit stop to give the team more practice.
Their banter came as the 25-year-old Dutchman carved his way to a crushing 22-second victory ahead of Perez to complete a hat-trick of Belgian wins.
Told earlier in the race to “follow my instructions, please, and respect them,” Verstappen was later told after pitting for fresh tires that “you used a lot of the tire on the out lap, Max. I’m not sure that was sensible.”
Verstappen took little notice, but responded with a fastest lap.
“I’d ask you to use your head a bit more,” his engineer said, to which Verstappen replied: “I could push on and have another stop, for pit-stop training.”
“Not this time,” Lambiase said curtly.
“I did slow down,” Verstappen said after the race.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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