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Horner: Max has driven an unbelievable race

Horner: Max has driven an "unbelievable race"

21-10-2018 21:23
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Judging by Christian Horner's reactions after the race, you would have thought Max Verstappen was World Champion. In actual fact, his Dutch driver finished in second place having started from P18. Verstappen drove through the field quickly in the opening stages and could have even challenged Kimi Raikkonen for the race win in the final few laps. 

Verstappen pushed so hard, he broke his shoe during the race! He was pushing so hard, and his boss was full of praise following the conclusion of the race in Austin. 

"He's beaten the pole man today, what a drive! Without Lewis behind him [at the end], he may well have had a good go at the race win. This is vintage Max, he will not give up," the Red Bull boss told Sky Sports. 

"Today he's driven an unbelievable race, if he hasn't got the driver of the day, he should have!" 

Due to the higher track temperatures on race day, the way the tyres worked was really unknown. Horner went on to explain how Verstappen managed to surprise the team with tyre management.

"We ran a whole bunch of simulations and everything was telling us we'd be out of tyres with six laps to go. But Max said he could do it," Horner added. 

"He kept making it work and he got that supersoft to the end of the race even though our computer system didn't think so."