21/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Paying tribute to his team as it notches up win number 100, Christian Horner admits that it is possible the Austrian outfit could win every single race this year.
Sunday's win saw Red Bull notch up its 100th Grand Prix win from 355 starts. While this is a significant achievement, putting the Austrian outfit into the Top Five of the sport's winningest teams, the big question many are asking is could Red Bull win all 22 of this year's races.
As it stands, Max Verstappen has completed all 487 of the season's laps thus far - as have Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, while Sergio Perez has completed all but 2 laps.
However, while Verstappen has never finished lower than the second step of the podium, teammate Perez has only made it on to the podium four times, and in Monaco failed to score a single point.
Granted, the stats are impressive, but could Red Bull do the seemingly unimaginable and win all 22 races?
"Can we? Yes. Will we? Who knows?" laughs Christian Horner.
"There's so many variables in this game," he continues, "we're just taking things one race at a time.
"The team are doing an incredible job, Max is driving out of his skin as well at the moment, so just collectively the group are doing a tremendous job."
"To get a century of victories, for the whole team, is an incredible achievement," he told Sky Sports, "not just here but for all the people, the men and women back in the team that put in all the long hours.
"100 races is a lot, but 100 wins, that's 27 per cent of all the races that we have entered, we have won, it is an incredible statistic."
Of course, 41 of those 100 wins come courtesy of Max Verstappen, asnd Horner was equally keen to pay tribute to the youngster.
"What we are witnessing with Max is the emergence of another mega talent,” he said. “You can start talking about him in the same sentence as the greats now after he matched Ayrton Senna.
“Max just keeps delivering at such a high level. The race was fantastic but to take pole position in conditions that were continually changing, his ability to adapt to whatever grip level he had, was Max at his best.”
The 100 wins puts Red Bull fifth in terms of the list of all-time grand prix winners, while Sunday's victory puts Verstappen joint-fifth with Ayrton Senna in terms of drivers.
"Part of him inside will be quite proud of that,” said Horner. “I don’t think he is one to show huge emotion. He is a very modest guy. He is very understated in many ways. But behind the scenes it will mean quite a lot to him.”