Christian Horner admits that it was important for his Red Bull Racing team to “get off the back foot” with a strong performance over the Formula 1 US GP weekend relative to rivals McLaren.
Helped by an upgrade package Max Verstappen won Saturday’s sprint race and then finished third in the main event, behind the two Ferraris.
He outscored Lando Norris for the first time since the summer break, extending his advantage by five points and ending a frustrating run for the team.
“I think it’s a combination of factors,” said Horner. “I think the team have worked very hard, and I think they’ve definitely added performance here. I think there’s more to understand, and more to fine tune.
“But I think coming off the back of Singapore it’s been a strong turnaround. We’ve outscored our nearest competitor in the drivers’ championship by five points this weekend. Three weeks ago, that looked very difficult.”
He added: “Five races to go now, and a 57-point lead. Nothing’s ever comfortable or assured, but it was important for us.
“This is the first time we’ve outscored Lando since I think Spa, so that was important for us to get off the back foot, and more onto the front foot.”
Expanding on what the latest upgrades have achieved Horner said they have helped to address the balance issues that have troubled Verstappen for much of the season.
“I think what it’s done is brought the balance a bit closer together,” he said. “So this disconnect between front and rear, it’s brought more of a balance into the car. And really, from the first lap, Max was much more competitive.
“He was much happier with the car as soon as we got here. So that’s encouraging for some of the races coming up as well. First part of this triple header, sprint race weekend as well, as I say, this is as much as we could have hoped for coming off the back of Singapore.”
However Horner acknowledged that Verstappen had struggled on the hard tyre in the second half of the main race in Austin.
“I think we seemed to engineer into the car a bit more understeer today, and that then sort of killed the front tyres,” he said.
“And compared to yesterday [in the sprint], where we didn’t have any understeer, the car was very quick.
“So we were quick enough to get the pole for the sprint, won the sprint, and had good degradation in the sprint, and the McLaren looked to be the one that was fading.
“Ferrari looked quick all weekend, in fairness. And then, arguably, we should have had the pole yesterday. We had a car that was very strong in quali. And then the weakest that we’ve been has been really on the hard tyre, with a bit too much understeer throughout the race.”
Regarding this weekend’s race in Mexico he said: “The form is moving from day-to-day, circuit-to-circuit. I think Ferrari have brought performance here.
“They’ve looked very strong, particularly in the race trim. It was interesting, obviously, they sacrificed perhaps a little in quality, to benefit in the race. And I’m sure they’ll be competitive in Mexico City.”
Adam Cooper F1 