Christian Horner said Max Verstappen was “without debate, the best driver in the world” but also praised the Red Bull team for their Japanese GP win.

The Dutchman was in fine form as he secured his first victory of the season but Horner took time to praise the team as a whole.

Christian Horner praises whole Red Bull team after Max Verstappen win

Verstappen defied predictions to take a stunning pole and was then able to hold both McLarens off to take a much-needed win for the Red Bull team.

Asked whether that settles the driver v car debate, Horner praised Verstappen whilst also commenting on the work of the whole of the Milton Keynes squad.

“Without any better debate, Max is the best driver in the world currently, but you’re a team,” he told Sky Sports. “[But] you’re not a driver and a car. You’re one team. You win together, you lose together.

“We’re working very hard. We know that this car has some vices. We know where we need to improve, and everybody is working incredibly hard to achieve that.

“I think we turned things upside down this weekend to get a car into a window that Max could make use of and Suzuka is a driver’s circuit, but you’ve also got to have a car to be able to deliver and I think credit to the engineering team as well this weekend for giving him something that he could finally work with.”

Horner also commented on the McLarens, saying that after the one and only pit stop, it was a “straight-out fight” between the two teams.

“From the first stop, the tyres were in great shape. The wear was incredibly low. So that was a straight-out fight from that first pit stop to the end of the race.

More reaction from the Japanese Grand Prix

The familiar Carlos Sainz career pattern that explains slow Williams start

Japanese GP driver ratings: Rookies shine as Yuki Tsunoda flops on debut

“So that was everybody throwing everything at it and you could see each of the McLarens look slightly quicker at different points in time.

“At one point, Oscar [Piastri] looked the quicker of the pairing. Lando [Norris] though, you know would come back, and it was, they were fighting literally over tenths and hundredths of a second.

“We were very strong in Turn 11, the chicane at the end of the lap. They were quite strong in the first sector, but we were able to balance it out.”

Verstappen’s win moved him to within one point of Championship leader Norris despite the McLaren being universally thought of as the quickest car on the grid.

Read next: What Christian Horner really thought of Tsunoda and Lawson’s first-race swap