Christian Horner was full of praise for Max Verstappen after the Dutchman’s stunning Canadian Grand Prix victory on Sunday, despite late race pressure from Carlos Sainz Jr.
Verstappen had been the man to beat all weekend long at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and appeared to have the race in his pocket, only for a safety car to bunch up the field after a crash from Yuki Tsunoda at turn two as he exited the pit lane on cold tyres.
Sainz pitted for fresh tyres and put the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver under pressure until the chequered flag, but Verstappen did not put a foot wrong as he claimed his sixth victory in nine races in 2022.
“Max was amazing today, he was under so much pressure particularly at the end of the race, he’s been superb all weekend – every session through practice, qualifying, and then the race,” said Horner, the Team Principal at Red Bull.
“The Ferrari was very quick today, with the DRS zones the way they are here he couldn’t break it and Carlos was cruising up to the back of him and you could see them recharging their battery to have another go time-after-time, but Max kept his concentration really well and it was absolutely amazing performance.”
As happy as Horner was with Verstappen’s performance and result, it was not the same story for the other Red Bull driver, with Sergio Pérez retiring with a suspected gearbox problem while charging through the field.
Horner says they will need to take a deeper look at the Mexican’s car to understand just what went wrong and to put a fix in place to ensure it doesn’t reoccur again later in the season on either car.
“It was a frustrating weekend for Checo and we think he had a suspected gearbox issue, so we’ll need to get the car back and have a look at what happened,” admitted Horner.
“It’s exciting to now head towards Silverstone.”
