Red Bull vow to “attack” McLaren and “throw everything” at F1 title

After losing the lead in the F1 constructors’ championship, Christian Horner says Red Bull must now “attack” McLaren.

Red Bull have been leapfrogged in the constructors’ standings by McLaren after Oscar Piastri claimed victory in the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and Lando Norris pulled off an impressive recovery from 15th on the grid to take fourth.

Max Verstappen endured a tough race and could only finish fifth, while teammate Sergio Perez was taken out in a dramatic late crash with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, costing Red Bull valuable points.

With Red Bull going from hunted to hunters and sitting 20 points behind McLaren, team principal Horner stressed his team have no choice but to now “throw everything at it” in their bid to defend their constructors’ title.

“We took a big hit in the constructors’ today,” Horner acknowledged. “We’ve got a 20 point deficit now so we’ve got to attack.

“Still got seven races to go, two sprint races to go. There’s a lot of points up for grabs and a lot of different circuits coming up, so it’s far from over.

“We’re pushing hard. We’re now not defending, we’re chasing. So it changes the dynamic again and we’re just going to throw everything at it.”

Verstappen saw his own championship advantage reduce for the third consecutive race as Norris gained three points on the Dutchman to cut the gap down to 59 points.

Horner admitted it was “frustrating” that Verstappen could not beat Norris following his disastrous qualifying in Baku.

“If you look at it before the weekend, based on where we were in Monza, it’s frustrating, particularly after where Lando qualified, that we didn’t beat him today,’’ Horner added. 

“But thankfully he hasn’t scored big points. We’ve got to build on what we’ve learnt already and there’s still a lot of racing to do.”