Almost defying logic, Christian Horner claims that the 53 point deficit to his teammate will ease the pressure on Sergio Perez.

Ahead of the back-to-back races in Monaco and Spain, the pressure was clearly on Red Bull as it appeared to have a genuine battle between its drivers on its hands.

Wins for Max Verstappen in Bahrain, Australia and Miami, and victories for Sergio Perez in Jeddah and Baku, left the pair just 14 points adrift of the double-header, putting Christian Horner and Helmut Marko under intense scrutiny as they insisted that their drivers would be free to race one another.

However, the double header saw Sergio's challenge fall apart, the Mexican enjoying a miserable weekend in Monaco after crashing out in qualifying, while a mistake in qualifying a week later left him on the back foot heading into the Barcelona race.

Nonetheless, with a straight face, Horner claims the 53 point deficit will ease the pressure on the Mexican.

"I think if you look at the points now there's a big split between the two of them," said the Briton following yesterday's race.

"If anything, that should take the pressure off him," he added. "He has nothing to lose now and just needs to relax. He can breathe out and just drive like we know he's capable of, like he did in Azerbaijan and some of the early races this year.

"Being Max Verstappen's team-mate, there's not a driver out there that who would've beaten Max in that car today," said the Briton. "He's up against a driver that's on the top of his form.

"That's very tough," he admitted. "Checo, mentally, it's a really tough thing to deal with. But now there is that separation in the points and that may take the pressure off him a little and the expectation that he's putting on himself. He needs to let go of that and be free to drive."

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