Christian Horner says Red Bull was surprised by how McLaren’s challenge never put Max Verstappen under serious pressure at Imola.

After a drubbing in Miami two weeks ago, Red Bull bounced back with a comfortable win at Imola as Verstappen stormed past McLaren’s Oscar Piastri at the start.

Christian Horner reveals Red Bull’s ‘surprise’ after Imola win

Having missed out on pole position by the smallest of margins on Saturday as Verstappen felt his soft tyres had dropped off during his final flying lap, the question mark of Red Bull on Sunday was just how well the updated RB21 would be able to keep its tyres alive over a race distance.

This has been the Achilles’ Heel of the car since the start of the season, rather than pure pace, with McLaren’s superiority in this area having allowed the Woking-based squad to open up a solid lead in both championships.

With Piastri taking pole, the Australian was aiming to make it four in a row and, initially, looked to have done the hard work by making a good start to hold the best line into Turn 1.

Verstappen, whose start had allowed George Russell to draw alongside and into a seemingly better position, outbraked the Mercedes man and, almost by surprise, went around the outside of Piastri to take the commanding position into Turn 2 and seize the lead.

From there, Verstappen never came under serious pressure – establishing an early lead as his car showed no signs of tyre degradation.

With McLaren bringing in Piastri quite early in a commitment to a two-stop strategy, Verstappen’s lead only grew when a mid-race Virtual Safety Car (VSC) meant he could pit without significant time loss to those behind.

A late-race Safety Car might have threatened his position as it closed the gaps up between Verstappen and two pursuing McLarens but, with Piastri on aging tyres compared to the freshly-shod Red Bull, the Dutch driver re-established a lead to take his second win of the season.

On a weekend when the success of Red Bull’s updates was a major talking point for the championship battle, just two weeks on from McLaren’s imperious victory in Miami, team boss Christian Horner said the relative lack of challenge from McLaren had been a big takeaway from the race.

“We were more surprised about McLaren’s lack of performance,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com, when asked about whether he was surprised by the Red Bull performance.

“We definitely got the car into a very good window yesterday, and Max was certainly very positive about the balance and being able to lean on the rear of the car.

“That was certainly a positive, and then that carried through it and he certainly felt, taking that into the race, just in a better balance window.

“The start was pretty average. It was the first corner. I think maybe Oscar was more focused on Russell and he left the slightest of gaps, and Max just sent it.”

With Verstappen’s start reminiscent of his audacious pass on the two Mercedes drivers at the first corner of the 2021 Mexican Grand Prix, Horner paid tribute to the bravery of his driver in such scenarios.

“It was win it or bin it and he’s just so good in that situation where he just sees a gap and it’s so decisive for him,” he said.

“But, thereafter, we just had the pace to pull out a gap. We had the margin on tyre deg that we could see we were in a bit better shape than the McLarens.

“Then the VSC came out and that was at an opportune time, circa mid-race, and then the Safety Car came out, which was another essentially free pit stop but, at all times, Max had the pace.

“He was able to respond. It never felt that we were under pressure from behind. Overall, a very positive 400th Grand Prix!”

With Piastri’s race challenge coming undone by emerging into traffic after his early first stop on Lap 13, Horner revealed that Verstappen had the tyre life to keep pushing all the way through for a planned one-stop – a stop he eventually made under the VSC on Lap 29, having continued to pump in laps in the low to mid-1:21s.

“I think Oscar had obviously pushed quite hard early on, and you could see he was starting to get a little bit of graining on that front right,” Horner said.

“It was borderline whether it was going to be a two-stop or one-stop. They obviously pulled the trigger on the two-stop, but, because of the length of the pit lane here being 27 seconds, it put him into a world of pain, traffic-wise.

“Max was then able to keep running and the deg was super low. Even with Lando in clean air behind, we were able to manage, quite easily, a nine to nine-and-a-half-second gap.

“When the VSC came out, the pit stop was pretty straightforward. Then Oscar pitted again on his strategy, which neutralised things but, by that time, he’d use both of his hard tyres.

“Then that final Safety Car, obviously, Max and Lando pitted, but it dropped him behind Oscar. You’ve got two drivers that are fighting for a world championship. At some point, self-interest will always outweigh team interest and that’s the conflict.

“They did a good job to not make contact. But it was commendable that they were allowed to race. But you could see it got pretty close.”

With McLaren opting against swapping around their drivers to give Norris, on fresh tyres, a chance to attack Verstappen straight after the final Safety Car, did Horner think that, had Norris been in second place, Verstappen could have lost the win?

“No, I think today we had the pace to cover whatever they could throw at us,” he summed up.

Verstappen’s win moves him to 22 points behind Oscar Piastri in the Drivers’ Championship, closing up 10 points.

Read Next: Russell points out alarming Mercedes ‘trend’ after ‘zero pace’ at Imola