Max Verstappen and Christian Horner identify Red Bull’s biggest strength this season

The team based in Milton Keynes won 15 out of 16 races in 2023, often with significant margins. Max Verstappen won 13 of them, including a record-breaking 10 consecutive wins between Miami and Monza. Only the Singapore Grand Prix prevented Red Bull from achieving a clean sweep in terms of race victories.

Max Verstappen is expected to win his third consecutive title as early as the sprint race in Qatar in about ten days, in his seventh full season with Red Bull. With 48 victories to his name, he currently ranks as the 5th driver with the most Grand Prix wins in Formula 1 history, just behind Alain Prost.

He succeeded Lewis Hamilton by becoming the “man to beat”, but Verstappen believes that the foundations of Red Bull’s success can be attributed to a simple character trait.

Red Bull communicates well

Max Verstappen gave his opinion on what made the team successful. « I think that everyone knows their role very well and, of course, is good at what they do. We have strong communication within the team and people work well together to achieve such results. »

The success of Red Bull in 2023 is partly explained by the fact that they didn’t have any challengers throughout the year. At different times during the season, Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and more recently McLaren have been the closest teams to Red Bull, with significant variations from one weekend to another. This is what the team principal, Christian Horner, noted.

« The peloton moved behind us, once it was McLaren, the previous week it was Ferrari, the week before it was Mercedes. We have been consistently at the front of the pack, 99% of the time, and we have been limited in the amount of development we have done on the car. But I think the developments we have made have been sufficiently effective to maintain a reasonable margin. »

He also highlighted the investment of the entire team. Formula 1 is one of the greatest team sports in the world and it is the result of the 22 different departments, all support functions, and all the backroom staff who have worked crazy hours and made sacrifices to produce this type of car and these type of results. Everyone is committed to one thing: the car. Producing the type of car we have and achieving these type of results is an incredible performance.

Horner praises Red Bull’s effectiveness in terms of car development: “I think the team has done an excellent job in efficiently developing the car and reducing its weight. The entire technical team, the operational team, has done an extraordinary job in maintaining this level of performance on the various circuits we have raced on this season.”

While Red Bull is well on its way to beating Mercedes’ record from 2016 for the most wins (19) in a single season, Horner is convinced that it will become increasingly difficult to replicate such a campaign. « Repeating a season like this is a golden moment for the team. I think it is impossible to do better than what we are doing. We are riding a wave and we want to ride it for as long as possible. But Formula 1 is a rapidly evolving activity, you see how quickly teams rise and fall, and Singapore demonstrated, at least, that there can be no complacency. We must continue to push the boundaries. »