Horner’s comments come as Liam Lawson struggles for pace two races into his Red Bull career.
The New Zealander was drafted in after Sergio Perez failed to live up to the team’s expectations in 2024, arguably costing Red Bull the constructors’ championship.
Lawson did enough during a six-event stint with RB last season to earn the promotion above his vastly more experienced teammate, Yuki Tsunoda.
However, after two events, there are now calls for Tsunoda to be given the drive as he continues to impress at the rebranding Racing Bulls squad.
The current gulf between Verstappen and Lawson is a concern that highlights two issues.
The most obvious is Lawson’s underperformance, and the other is the design of the Red Bull RB21 – the latter potentially a significant contributor to the former.
Verstappen himself has admitted the RB21 is not an easy car to drive, such that his new colleague would likely be faster driving a Racing Bulls VCARB02 instead.
The Dutchman is the clear team leader within Red Bull and has been since Daniel Ricciardo left the operation at the end of 2018.
That tenure has allowed him consistent input to designers which has steered car development, prompting suggestions the team has created a car only Verstappen can drive.
”The car is difficult to drive and Max is able to adjust to that,” Horner said.
“Liam is, confidence-wise, he’s struggling with the car at the moment, which is why we made some significant changes [for the Chinese Grand Prix] to see if we could find a more confidence-inspiring set-up.”
Verstappen possesses a unique driving style, preferring a ‘pointy’ front end and a tendency for oversteer.
Former teammate Alex Albon has described the car that creates like playing a computer game with the mouse sensitivity turned up.
With that the starting point, as the car is developed, Verstappen gets quicker as his counterpart begins to struggle, as Perez did during his time with the team, as did Albon and Pierre Gasly before him.
“If I think back to the beginning of ’22, we had quite a stable car but with quite a bit of understeer, which obviously Max hates,” Horner explained.
“We had an upgrade in Spain where we put a lot more front into the car and Max made a big step forward.
“Checo [Perez] sort of nose-dived from that point.
“So you’ve got to produce the quickest car and you’re driven by the information that you have and the data that you have.
“As a team, we don’t set out to make a car driver-centric, you just work on the info that you have and the feedback that you have to produce the fastest car that you can.
“That’s obviously served us very well with 122 victories.”
Lawson’s brief tenure has arguably highlighted how niche the car has become.
The Kiwi has been left frustrated and confused as he rationalises the fact Verstappen can extract performance from the car where he cannot.
Lawson’s cause has not been helped by a lack of practice in the opening two events at unfamiliar circuits, a scenario created by his inexperience and rapid progression.
That has made a difficult task even harder as he works to come to grips with the Red Bull versus his performances at RB last year.
“The Racing Bulls car is a more settled car in terms of it probably is a little more stable on entry,” Horner noted.
“It probably has a bit more understeer in that car, and therefore, it’s easier to adapt to.
“But you can see the difference in pace in the cars on a longer stint,” he added.
“But in terms of finding the limit in a car that has an inherent understeer is always going to be easier than finding the limit in a car that is a little more edgy.”
Lawson finished 12th in China, benefitting from the exclusions of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, and Gasly ahead, with his race heavily compromised with a pit lane start and a poor qualifying effort.
It was a performance that has put his future under a cloud as F1 heads next to the Japanese Grand Prix from April 4-6.
