Max Verstappen victory "injects energy" into Red Bull after struggles- Horner

Verstappen, Red Bull, Saudi Arabia, 2022 — Photo: © LAT Images

Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

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Verstappen victory "injects energy" into Red Bull after struggles- Horner

Red Bull fought back from a double retirement to win in Saudi Arabia

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Tuesday 29 March 2022 12:44

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes Max Verstappen's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix victory will have 'injected a whole bunch of energy" into its workforce.

The reigning world champion edged out Charles Leclerc in an enthralling battle at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit to get off the mark for the new season having retired from the first race in Bahrain.

Red Bull's battle with Mercedes last year threatened to leave the team behind in the development race heading into F1's new era and despite the pace shown in Bahrain, the unreliability would have caused concern.

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But asked after Verstappen's win how confident he was the team could push forward with development, Horner replied: "We have learnt some good lessons.

"What I am particularly pleased with is we had, probably we came onto the development of this car later than our rivals.

"The whole team in Milton Keynes, after the effort that went into the RB16B last year, the lateness of that championship, the compressed time for this car, they have worked incredibly hard.

"This is just the kind of result that injects a whole bunch of energy into the factory."

Red Bull must unlock potential in "immature car"

F1 is expected to complete its longest season with 23 races scheduled pending on a replacement for the axed Russian Grand Prix.

The pecking order is expected to change throughout the year as teams develop their packages to unlock pace.

On whether Red Bull was happy it could battle Ferrari all year, Horner joked: "We have only got 21 races to go.

"The first two races have been great racing between the two teams and it is now going to be about development, about unlocking potential in these cars that are still very immature," he added.

"We can see Ferrari are very quick and it is going to be a very busy period through the rest of the spring now to try and get performance to the cars and understand how the tyres are working and so on over the next few races."