Christian Horner has suggested it’s impossible for his team to do better after wrapping up the constructors’ championship with victory in the Japanese Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen won the race ahead of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, a result which ensured a sixth constructors’ crown for Red Bull.
The RB19 has been the form car throughout 2023 and will go down as one of the most dominant in Formula 1 history.
From 16 races already this year, Verstappen and Sergio Perez have won 15 of them with Singapore a week ago the only blemish on that record.
“To complete a season like this, it’s a golden moment,” Horner said of his team’s success.
“to do better than we’re doing I think is impossible.
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“We’re riding a wave and of course, we want to try and ride that wave as long as we can, but Formula 1 is a fast-moving business, you see how quickly teams move up, move down.
“Singapore, if nothing else, demonstrates there can be zero complacency, that we have to keep pushing the boundaries.”
The Marina Bay race a week ago has proved a thorn in the side of Red Bull as there is no clear explanation.
While it’s accepted the circuit is something of an outlier, the dramatic drop in form that weekend has proved puzzling.
And while Horner and the team rightly point out that their winning streak had to end somewhere, to come down with such a bump was jarring.
“Sometimes the races you lose are the weekends you learn the most at,” Horner ventured.
“I think that it was a big reminder to everybody that it’s very easy to miss the target, and I think we all left Singapore knowing that, ultimately, the winning run that we had would come to an end, but a little frustrated.”
Victory in Japan was Verstappen’s 13th of the season and moved his individual total on to 400 points. Team-mate Sergio Perez, who had a bruising day that ended in retirement, is next-best with 223.
That combines to give Red Bull a now unassailable lead over Mercedes in the constructors’ championship, which sits on 305 points, just 20 clear of Ferrari in third.
“I think either driver is pretty much leading the constructors’ championship at the moment,” Horner noted when asked if he could win the team’s competition with just one driver.
“But it’s the combination of the two drivers’ points that have obviously provided the amount of victories that we’ve had across the season, we’ve had 13 with Max, two with Checo.
“To achieve this sixth constructors’ championship is beyond our wildest dreams. Coming into the season I don’t think we could have ever dreamt of having a year like this.
“You’re going to pick something like ‘unbelievable’ as one word,” he added when asked how he’d sum up the year in a word.
“Last year was a very strong year for us, but I think to have kept that momentum rolling with the challenges that we’ve had is testimony to all the men and women in the team that have worked tirelessly to produce a car that’s competitive.
“Formula 1 is one of the biggest team sports in the world, and I think it’s the result of all those 22 different departments, from all the support functions, all of the backroom staff that we have work crazy hours, the sacrifices they’ve made, to produce these kinds of cars and this kind of result.
“Everybody is invested in one thing and that’s the car.
“To produce the kind of car that we have, and achieve these kinds of results, it’s been an incredible performance.”
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