Red Bull Racing's Christian Horner believes Max Verstappen will be a bona fide contender for the world title in 2019.
The 21-year-old clinched his fifth career win on Sunday in Mexico City and he did it in dominant form.
In a sense it's been a season of development for Verstappen who found himself on the receiving end of a lot of criticism in the early part of the year on the back of a series of incidents and mistakes that led many to call into question not only his driving but also his ability to learn from his mistakes.
But the young bull harnessed the pressure and put his head down, eventually generating some much needed consistency behind the wheel to compliment his impressive speed.
"You’ve seen this weekend [in Mexico] if we’ve had an engine that is anywhere near the ballpark of our opponents, then we’ve got a strong enough team and strong enough driver package to take the fight to them [Mercedes and Ferrari]," said Horner.
"We’re obviously hopeful that the Honda, with the progress they’re making, will put us into a situation where we’re more regularly able to compete.
"[Verstappen] went through a tough path at the beginning of the year. But really, since Montreal, he’s been doing some incredible races and I think with experience that was really the only missing piece.
"All drivers make mistakes, you see that up and down the paddock. It’s what you learn from them."
Looking ahead to Red Bull's switch to Honda power from 2019, and adding the few aerodynamic tweaks linked to next year's regulations, Helmut Marko is also confident that the Milton Keynes-based team and its star driver will be in an advantageous position next season.
"We already have the numbers from the new wings and it makes us very optimistic," he told Auto Motor und Sport.
"We expect that Honda will be only 10 kilowatts behind Ferrari and Mercedes. We think we can compensate for this with a good chassis."
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