Christian Horner has claimed that “nothing can be considered certain” in Max Verstappen’s fight to defend his F1 title. The Dutchman currently holds a 76-point lead over Lando Norris, who is quickly becoming the 26-year-old’s closest rival on the track, despite their rather good relationship in real life.

With the McLaren driver moving up to second in the drivers’ standings, after Sergio Perez and then Charles Leclerc occupied that spot, Verstappen was able to increase his gap to Norris to 84 points after the Grand Prix. British Formula 1 car racing.

However, Horner knows how quickly the situation can change. After dominating the opening rounds of the season – as they did in 2023 – Red Bull has been out-competed by Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes since then.

There are still 11 races to go, and the Red Bull team director is “well aware” how quickly the lead in the championship can be erased. “We will develop the car as fast as possible and that’s what we will continue to do,” the 50-year-old man told the media. “Obviously Max [Verstappen] has a pretty good lead in the drivers’ championship – and I can fall behind very quickly, so nothing can be taken for granted. “In the drivers’ championship, 51 points can drop very quickly, so we are well aware of that and are determined to make sure we have more points-scoring weekends.

Red Bull needs to extend the RB20’s operating life
McLaren has emerged as the main competitor to Red Bull’s dominance. At the Hungarian Grand Prix, the Woking team had just their second one-two win in the past decade.

Team Papaya is on a roll, supported by well-implemented updates starting from the weekend it won its first grand prix of the season – in Miami.

The team was able to develop a car that was comparable to the Red Bull RB20 – with a larger running window giving it an advantage. Red Bull brought its own series of upgrades to the Hungaroring, but they were not as well received as expected. Verstappen would criticize their performance and not provide the Milton Keynes team with the strongest car at Budapest.

“Honestly, I think we could get more performance out of them [Red Bull’s latest upgrades],” Horner said when evaluating the new parts. “I think we need to widen the operating window for the car. “When the car was in the right window, it qualified for pole by a margin of four-tenths [of a second] in Austria. And then obviously [in Hungary] we missed pole by less than a margin tenth. “When you listen to the driver, he has limitations in the car, he knows what the performance [is]. Obviously, the important thing is how do you turn those problems into solutions. “