John N
Christian Horner was impressed when Verstappen and Perez drove to Red Bull’s first one-two finish in 2016. Their championship-winning team suffered three DNFs this season, but Red Bull managed to deliver at Imola. Max Verstappen not only took pole position on Friday; he delivered a Sprint win and a dominant Grand Prix win too.
Every point counts…
Well done to @Max33Verstappen who took the @DHL_Motorsports Fastest Lap Award at the weekend ⏱👏 >> https://t.co/sOAsD9HZK8#ImolaGP #MomentsThatDeliver pic.twitter.com/7uOq3gf0wG
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 25, 2022
Horner said: “It was quite a stressful race on the pit wall because of changing conditions, and there’s a lot that can go wrong in those situations, but I thought both Max and Checo did an unbelievable job today. To come here, we attacked the weekend, and we brought a little upgrade – many people said, ‘you shouldn’t do that with only one practice session.’
We believed in ourselves, and it paid off. And I think we were unlucky in Australia a couple of weeks ago, but we came within one point of maximum points this weekend, so the team has a superb fightback.”
Horner praised the team for executing four pitch-perfect pit stops to keep their drivers ahead of Charles Leclerc, who threatened until his late-off at Variante Alta. “We had the buffer to cover Ferrari, first with Checo and Max, and then we had the cushion to protect it, first with Checo and Max. The guys chucked out an incredible stop on trackside and back at Milton Keynes.
Horner said Verstappen and Perez did well to learn from Saturday’s race, where neither enjoyed ideal starts. “I think both Max and Checo made great starts,” Horner said. That left-hand side of the grid looked slightly advantageous to the right-hand side, so both Max and Checo got a great start, and then it was a matter of controlling the race.
There was one trip over the grass with Checo, but he had Charles under control other than that. So, just an excellent team performance.” Heading to Miami for the next race, Red Bull is only 11 points behind Ferrari in the teams’ standings – while Verstappen is up to second in the drivers’.
