Horner hails 'golden moment' for triumphant Red Bull

Red Bull secured this year's constructors championship thanks to Max Verstappen's victory in the Japanese GP in Suzuka, and team boss Christian Horner said the squad couldn't realistically have done any better in 2023.

Today's win puts Red Bull 177 points ahead of Mercedes in the standings with six races remaining in the season, making it mathematically impossible for them to be caught up.

The outcome will come as no shock, with Red Bull having won all but one race this season and frequently hammering their rivals with huge winning margins in the race.

“To do better than we’re doing I think is impossible," Horner told the media in the paddock at Suzuka International Racing Course after the end of the race. “To complete a season like this, it’s a golden moment,” he said. “We’re riding a wave, and of course we want to try and ride that wave as long as we can.

“To achieve this sixth constructors’ championship is beyond our wildest dreams," he continued. "Coming into the season I don’t think we could have ever dreamt of having a year like this.

• Read also: Verstappen's Japan victory hands constructors crown to Red Bull

“To produce the kind of car that we have, and achieve these kinds of results, it’s been an incredible performance," he insisted. “Everybody is invested in one thing, and that’s the car.

“Last year was a very strong year for us," he said. "But 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."

Asked to summarise 2023 in a single word, Horner's choice was one that has already been routinely used by many fans and pundits in recent weeks: “You’re going to pick something like ‘unbelievable’ as one word."

Horner pointed out that Verstappen would be leading the constructors battle on points all on his own. “But it’s the combination of the two drivers that have obviously provided the amount of victories we’ve had across the season. We’ve had 13 with Max, two with Checo."

The only race that slipped through their fingers was last week's Grand Prix at Singapore where Red Bull had a strange slump in performance leaving Verstappen finishing in P5 and Sergio Perez eight, with Carlos Sainz winning for Ferrari.

“Singapore, if nothing else, demonstrates there can be zero complacency, that we have to keep pushing the boundaries," Horner said. “Sometimes the races you lose are the weekends you learn the most at.

"It was a big reminder to everybody that it’s very easy to miss the target," he added. "I think we all left Singapore knowing that, ultimately, the winning run that we had would come to an end. But it's a little frustrating.

"Formula 1 is a fast-moving business, you see how quickly teams move up, move down." he pointed out. "[It's] one of the biggest team sports in the world.

"It’s the result of all those 22 different departments, 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.

“To all our partners, it’s the collection of an incredible effort of everybody doing their bit to achieve results like we've done," he continued. "[Honda] has been a great partner for us.

"It's very fitting to win this championship here with Honda in front of all the fans here," he said. “The support we've had the whole weekend has just been phenomenal.”

Naturally Horner gave full credit to the team's star driver for his leading role in Red Bull's triumph today: “Max is just on another level at the moment, so it was an incredible performance."

The one cloud in the day was a disappointing outing for Perez, who collided with Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen during the afternoon and incurred a penalty for a safety car infringement before retiring with damage.

“He went through a few front wings today,” Horner noted wryly. “From the very start, he got knocked around a bit and then obviously picked up a penalty, and the move on Kevin Magnussen.

"It was a shocker of a race for him today," he told Sky Sports F1 “It got off to a bad start where he sort of got concertinaed on the rundown to turn 1 and picked up some front wing damage.

“It just wasn't his day." he sighed. “The only good thing was we were able to serve the penalty here, so he leaves it here in Japan. He'll bounce back at the next race - and you know, he's a big part of the success as well.”

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