Christian Horner pinpoints McLaren ‘problem’ Red Bull can exploit

Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner thinks McLaren face a “problem” due to giving their drivers equal status.

The faster McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri chased Max Verstappen’s Red Bull for the entire Japanese Grand Prix but were unable to challenge for the win as the reigning world champion masterfully converted his brilliant pole position into his first victory of the 2025 season.

McLaren’s strategy came under fire in Japan after the team opted against trying to undercut Verstappen by pitting Norris a lap earlier. Instead, the two leaders pitted on the same lap, leading to their dramatic near-miss at the end of the pitlane.

Prior to Japan, McLaren’s drivers had taken one win apiece across the opening two rounds in Australia and China.

Horner believes McLaren’s decision to give both drivers equal treatment could play into Red Bull’s hands when it comes to the drivers’ championship fight, with Verstappen now just one point behind Norris.

"I guess the problem they have is they have two drivers who are fighting for the drivers' championship,” Horner said.

"The difficulty is they've made a bed where they're going to let them race. So that's the compromise that inevitably comes with that."

Asked if Norris could have beaten Verstappen by pitting one lap earlier, Horner replied: "The undercut was reasonably powerful. There's 'could have, should have, would have', I'm sure, up and down the pitlane.

"I think the majority of the hard work was done on Saturday. I guess 90% of the cars finished in the order that they started in. It was a flat-out sprint race today. There was very low degradation.

"We know the McLarens are very, very fast. And it needed Max to be inch perfect with two very fast McLarens right behind him.

“For 53 laps he made not a single mistake and had the pace to cover them, keep them out of his DRS. I think that's one of Max's best weekends.”

Could Lando Norris remark come back to haunt him?

Norris kicked off the weekend in Japan by boldly stating his belief that McLaren are the only F1 team with “two good drivers at the minute”.

Prior to the track action commencing, Norris said: “We've seen over the last week and a half, other people saying that they don't think they were that far away.

“So as much as Max might say stuff, his last stint in China was very strong, still not as good as us, but it was a lot more competitive.

“I saw [Ferrari team boss] Fred Vasseur said that he thinks that Ferrari should be competing against us and a lot more up there. In fact, they beat us in the sprint, and they qualified ahead of us [in the sprint], so [we’re] not that far ahead of them.

“People love to be saying that [but it’s] because we literally are the only team that has two good drivers at the minute. That's the big difference.

“If one of us was doing a lot worse, or one of us was not as strong, we would be...the [Shanghai] sprint Oscar was, what second or third, and I was already eighth, but you'd have that a lot more often, like you do with Ferrari, or like you do with Red Bull. Max is up there, and you have the other driver a lot further back.

“So I think just the fact we have two good drivers is honestly making the biggest difference, because in certain cases I don’t think we necessarily had the quickest one where there was a sprint last weekend in the qualifying or the race, but the fact that we have just two good drivers pushing each other makes just a bigger difference than people expect and take acknowledgement for.

“So, do I agree we have the best car? Yes, and it's nice to say that we know. I have not had that before in Formula 1.

“Max has had his time of having the best car by a long way, and now it's our chance, you know, and it's our turn.

“That's the game, you try and get every advantage possible and McLaren have done a very good job to beat the rest and make it better than everyone else so we’ll take the advantage while we can, but the others are certainly not that far behind.”