Red Bull had quicker race car than Ferrari - Horner

Red Bull had a quicker race car than Ferrari during Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, reckons team boss Christian Horner.

Max Verstappen continued his run of top-four finishes with another strong drive as he once again led Red Bull’s charge in Baku, ending up behind the third-placed Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel and comfortably clear of the recovering Charles Leclerc.

The Dutchman kept tabs with Vettel throughout the race and only dropped back after Red Bull opted against taking risks following a suspected driveshaft failure on Pierre Gasly’s RB15.

“Our pace compared to Ferrari and Mercedes was strong today,” Horner said.

“I think we actually probably had a quicker car than Ferrari today. I think when you look at Pierre, in particular, despite on paper having a horrible weekend where he’s been excluded three times and a DNF, actually his pace has been strong.

“If you look at his pace versus [Charles] Leclerc, in the second half of the stint he was stronger throughout. I think we lost a little bit too much time behind [Sergio] Perez at the beginning which dropped Max off the back of Sebastian [Vettel] and the Mercedes, but at the end of the stint he was quicker, quite a bit quicker.

“So we went a couple of laps longer to give him a better tyre for the second stint, and then for the second stint I think he took ten seconds out of, certainly on Sebastian and closed on the group ahead.

“Then we had the VSC and we struggled a little bit with getting the warm up going again but after the failure that we’ve seen with Pierre we didn’t want to take too much risk.”

Horner was left encouraged by the pace demonstrated by both his drivers in comparison to the Ferrari duo, and believes the performance reflects the gains made by both Red Bull and new engine supplier Honda since the start of the year.

“I think we closed the gap since the beginning of the year,” he explained.

“In Melbourne we had a strong race, I think Max was pushing Lewis [Hamilton] for the majority of that Grand Prix, Bahrain was a tough race for us but I think actually exposed some things that we’ve managed to improve since then.

“Then China has been a stronger race, and then again here, even more so. So at a track that, you know doesn’t historically play to our strengths, I think we’re looking forward to heading back to Europe now. A few circuits coming up that hopefully should suit us.

“I think the car’s been performing pretty well in the race today,” Horner added. “If you look at the middle sector, we were continually the quickest car through the middle sector of the race here.

“I think we’ve definitely made progress with the car, again it’s all part of a process, but I think the car has been strong in the race again.”