Horner jokes: ‘I have to thank Wolff for new floor rules’ after Spa 1-2 finish

Much was made of F1’s new floor rules for Spa, with many tipping Red Bull and Ferrari to be negatively impacted by them.

So far it seems that they’ve had the complete opposite effect with Max Verstappen enjoying his most dominant weekend, winning from 14th on the grid.

Verstappen now leads teammate Sergio Perez by 93 points and could win his second title as early as Singapore next month.

Speaking after the race, Horner believes the circuit characteristics was a big reason for Red Bull’s performance advantage rather than the technical directive.

“On the face of it I’d probably have to thank Toto for the TD! In all seriousness, I think this circuit has played to our strengths,” Horner said. “We have a very efficient car, we’ve found a very good setup and Max has just been in phenomenal form the very first lap in first practice. 

“Obviously, strategically we chose to take the penalty here and 14th became 13th technically as the starting point with everybody else. But of course Max still had to navigate his way through the pack and he did that very efficiently over the first couple of laps, so he hit the front far quicker than we could have ever expected and the soft tyre seemed to work for him as well in that stint. 

“Thereafter the pace we had with Max and Checo was enough that he got past Carlos and bring home one of the most dominant performances that we’ve had as a team since either 2010 or 2013.”

Horner revealed that the technical directive hasn’t changed the way Red Bull set up their car at Spa.

“A lot was made and a lot of expectation was put on that TD, so perhaps it’s hurt others more than it’s hurt ourselves,” he added. “So we haven’t really changed the way we operate the car. 

“Obviously, grounding here has always been an issue because of Eau Rouge, but that’s not unique to us that’s the same for every team.”