Christian Horner felt it was a strong race from Red Bull Racing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday as Max Verstappen brought home a trophy for third place, while Pierre Gasly claimed sixth.
Horner, the Team Principal of the Milton Keynes-based squad, was delighted with Verstappen’s performance as he worked his way ahead of both Scuderia Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel, before turn four, with his move around the outside of the latter impressively pulled off around the outside of turn three.
Gasly too impressed Horner, with the Frenchman suffering with performance issues caused by debris lodging inside his front wing at around half distance, which compromised his afternoon thereafter and left him unable to contend with the Ferrari’s for an even better result.
“It was a phenomenal first lap from Max as he managed to pass both Ferraris in Turns 2 and 3, and Pierre got a reasonable start too,” said Horner. “We elected quite early on to be a little more aggressive and go on a two-stop strategy.
“Max was very consistent today and he was able to get everything out of the car, maintaining third position and holding off Seb after the Safety Car at the end of the race. Pierre had another strong race, however he picked up some debris about half-way through the race which got lodged in his front wing and cost him quite a bit of performance.
“All things considered, it was a very strong race again from him and he brought the Team more important points.”
Horner said it was pleasing to see Red Bull secure their second podium result of the season in Spain but there is still plenty of work to do in order to close the gap to Mercedes-AMG Motorsport up front, particularly with the Monaco Grand Prix, a race the team won with Daniel Ricciardo in 2018, coming up next.
“It’s great to get our second podium of the year and now there’s obviously plenty to do before Monaco, where Mercedes will be the benchmark going into the weekend, but hopefully we can continue to close the gap,” said Horner.
