Christian Horner has praised Max Verstappen for extracting what he did from the Red Bull RB20, as he “drove the wheels off it” to win his fourth World Championship.

Verstappen wrapped up his fourth Drivers’ World Championship in Las Vegas, having spent the summer looking over his shoulder as McLaren and Lando Norris became a serious threat to his crown.

Christian Horner: Max Verstappen is still evolving

Verstappen’s dominant start to the F1 2024 season looked in danger of going off the rails as Red Bull’s development path for the RB20 resulted in the team falling off the boil compared to rival teams like McLaren and Mercedes.

McLaren’s consistent front-running performance resulted in Lando Norris launching a serious title bid, with an increasingly tense championship fight all but ending abruptly in Brazil after Verstappen took the win while Norris could only claim sixth.

Verstappen went on to wrap up the title properly in Las Vegas, marking another hard-fought championship to go along with his maiden win in 2021 after easier campaigns in ’22 and ’23.

With four titles to his name, Verstappen has now matched what former Red Bull hero Sebastian Vettel managed between 2010 and ’13, while also scoring the same number of titles as Alain Prost – Verstappen’s next target is 1950’s legend Juan Manuel Fangio, who finished his career with five titles.

“I think he joins that group now. I think he really is one of the greats,” Horner told talkSport when asked about Verstappens’ year.

“When you talk about him in the company that he’s now with, with the [Alain] Prosts, you know, he’s now exceeded what Ayrton Senna achieved, and there’s very few that have gone on to achieve more – [Michael] Schumacher, [Lewis] Hamilton, and, obviously, [Juan Manuel] Fangio. So, he’s an incredible talent. He’s still evolving. He’s still getting better.

“I think this year was arguably his strongest year because we didn’t have the strongest car this year for, certainly, elements of the season – we were a little bit on the back foot, and he’s delivered incredibly consistently and really punched above his weight.

“So yeah, an incredible season from him.”

With Red Bull’s performance level falling away through the middle part of the season before finding a path forward again in the final quarter, Horner praised Verstappen for how the Dutch driver had kept an ailing championship fight alive through the difficult phase.

“It’s a combination of factors like all these things, and we started the season really well,” he said, elaborating on the year.

“We came out of the blocks and we won seven out of the first 10 races.

“But the opposition started coming back at us from sort of the late spring – McLaren started to get performance on their car. Then, Ferrari and Mercedes, it was a tough few summer months for us as, suddenly, the developments that we were bringing to the car weren’t adding the performance that we wanted, and Max was having to drive the wheels off it to keep himself in contention and in control of that championship.

“Then, at the back end of the year, we managed to get some more performance on the car and some big wins. Brazil, with Max, was outstanding. And then, more recently, in Qatar.”

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Asked if it is possible for a driver to win a championship with an average car, Horner said the role a driver plays in utilising the full potential of the machinery under him is crucial to success.

“I think you’ve always got to have a combination of both,” he said.

“Formula 1 is the biggest team sport in the world. Of course, the driver is a key, key element.

“But, within the team, there are approximately 1000 people that are all having to do their job and their role and so it’s a combination of factors.

“But the driver is your biggest variable, and, for sure, a driver like Max is just able to extract that much more from the car, from the performance and, with the level of experience he has now, he reads a race so well.

“He’s often commenting to us about what’s going on in the race because he’s seeing it on the big screen as he’s driving around. He’ll ask [questions like] ‘What happened in the pit stop to Hamilton?’

“How the hell did he see that because he’s 25 seconds behind him? He’s seen it on the screen, so the spare capacity that he has whilst driving – that’s what’s truly impressive.”

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