Horner: It’s nice to know we won’t miss the title

Immediately after Max Verstappen’s victory in Japan, Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner thanked the entire team for their excellent work this year, winning the Constructors’ Championship for the sixth time. He spared no kind words to the families of all employees.

Q: It looks like you’ve already changed since you don’t smell like champagne?
Christian Horner: Yeah, Max doused me all over on stage, so I had to change. (laughs) But a season like this shows the colossal work that goes on behind the scenes in all 22 departments of the team, the efforts that our specialists put in at the base in Milton Keynes, regardless of the time.

These are not only our great engineers and designers, the entire technical department led by Adrian Newey and Pierre Vache, but also the people who work in support departments. Thanks to all of them, the team’s shape is now better than ever before and we have been able to build such a fast car, with which Max Verstappen simply crushed all his rivals…

Question: Your words are like the speeches of movie stars who receive an Oscar – after all, they have to remember and thank everyone. But then you also have to thank your mother!
Christian Horner: …And we must also say a big thank you to the wives of all our employees, as working days in a team like ours are very long, cutting everyone off from their families for long periods of time. But their halves take care of all the household chores, so I thank them too!

Q: Now that the team has already won the Constructors’ Championship, are you likely to focus all your attention on ensuring your drivers take the top two places in the Individual Championship?
Christian Horner: We can no longer miss the championship title, and in theory any Red Bull Racing driver can win it. It’s really nice to know this as we prepare for the remaining races. But our approach remains unchanged: before the Japanese Grand Prix we planned to attack with the same force as in all previous phases of the season. It was clear that Max had a real fighting spirit and in qualifying he set the best time of anyone who has ever driven a Red Bull car on this circuit.

He then absolutely dominated Sunday’s race and our approach for the remaining Grands Prix will be exactly the same.

Question: But for Sergio Perez, the Japanese weekend went in such a way that it is better to forget it quickly. What can the team do to help him achieve second place in the championship?
Christian Horner: Yes, such a bad race came as a shock to him, it all started with a bad start when he had a multi-car accident and the front wing of his RB19 was broken. The wing had to be replaced, but at the entrance to the pit lane he was ahead of Fernando Alonso, for which he was fined, and when he returned to the track he collided with one of the Haas cars.

All in all, it was one of those weekends where everything goes wrong. But we were able to ensure that he served his sentence at this circuit, so now all the problems of the Japanese weekend are a thing of the past.