Horner praises mindset of Verstappen after failed qualification Imola

Christian Horner is delighted with his team's performance in the first two races of the season. The Red Bull Racing team boss knows that more than once in recent years, his team has had to close the gap on Mercedes during the season, and often by then it was too late to make a serious bid for the (constructors) championship.

Encouraging

For Horner, the way Red Bull performed in Imola was a confirmation of what he had seen before, he revealed in an official Red Bull Racing press release: "Pre-season testing can tell you very little, so it was encouraging to see the speed of the RB16B in Bahrain. But it was even more special to go to Imola and confirm that performance to prove that Bahrain was not a one-off."

The fact that Sergio Perez excelled on Saturday was even more cause for optimism for Horner: "It was the first time Max had been out-qualified by a teammate since Daniel at the 2018 Mexico GP, so the fact that both cars finished within a tenth of pole, despite both drivers making mistakes during their fastest laps, shows that both cars could have been in first place."

Mindset Max

However, points are not distributed on Saturday and so it was still Verstappen who pulled the coal out of the fire on Sunday for Horner: "Max went into the race with the same mindset as that same weekend in Mexico and after his mistake in qualifying there was only going to be one man in the lead coming out of turn one, and that was him."