Team Principal Christian Horner has denied his recent comments suggesting Max Verstappen should “build” the Red Bull team around him going forward, was a snub towards teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
The comments came as the Briton looked to reassure the Dutchman that the Milton Keynes outfit would be the right place to try and beat Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel to the Formula 1 title. It appears the words stuck too, as prior to the United States Grand Prix, Verstappen would sign a new contract extension until 2020.
At the same time, however, it raised suspicions as to whether Red Bull was starting to push the 20-year-old forward as the lead driver ahead of Ricciardo, who is out of contract after 2018 and has already made it clear he will wait to assess his options.
Talking to Motor Sport magazine though, Horner insisted he did not mean it to belittle the importance of the five-time F1 winner to the team.
“What actually I’m referring to is within his engineering group with the people he (Verstappen) is working with,” he claimed, “in the same way that Ricciardo has that confidence in the people around him in his garage and to make his feedback very clear in terms of what he wants from the car.
“Fortunately, the way the two drivers drive the car is very similar, their set-ups are very similar. It’s not like as a team we have a left or right to choose. What works for one 99 percent of the time works for the other in how we progress the car.”
Horner has made his feelings clear that he wants the 28-year-old to sign the same deal until the end of 2020 as Verstappen, stating the two together could well be Red Bull’s most talented line-up in their 12 years on the grid.
“I feel that Max and Daniel represent our best ever pairing in Formula 1 and are currently, probably the best driver pairing on the grid,” he said. “So it’s my priority to make sure we retain that, at least until 2020.”
On Ricciardo, he continued by proclaiming the man from Perth as F1’s best overtaker following his latest comeback through the field in Brazil on Sunday.
“He came past us on the pit wall and you thought ‘he should get close into Turn 1’, and then he’s past!” Horner said. “He brakes so late, so deep. He’s really mastered that now. That’s why for me he’s one of the best overtakers out there, if not the best.”
