Christian Horner: ‘Max Verstappen doesn’t crave adulation, he loves his racing’

Christian Horner leans in, pauses and then smiles as he considers what it’s like to manage Formula One’s world champion. It transpires that for all that he is ferociously competitive, Max Verstappen makes for good company. “At Silverstone he will come round for dinner and what impresses me is how good he is with the kids,” says the Dutchman’s Red Bull team principal. “He is just totally at ease with the children. He is genuinely a nice lad.”

This weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix, Verstappen is likely to become a double world champion. He will successfully defend the title he first claimed last year if he wins the race and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finishes lower than second. In doing so, after an almost completely dominant season, it will be a statement of authority and a thorough vindication of the faith Horner and Red Bull placed in him when they first put him in an F1 car in 2015 when he was just 17.

In the Red Bull motorhome as the rain at Suzuka batters the roof and the stoical fans in the stands, Horner acknowledges how close he has been to Verstappen for almost all of the young man’s journey, including recounting how he joined him at a Spice Girls show to watch Horner’s wife, Geri, perform.

Eight years on from Verstappen’s debut and with one world championship already under his belt what Horner, who has run Red Bull since it entered F1 in 2005, has observed suggests the 25-year-old has handled it all with remarkable equanimity for one so young and with such a high profile.

“He hasn’t changed despite all the adulation he is receiving,” Horner explains. “You often see personalities change, they become divas. Max is fundamentally the same lad that turned up six years ago, I don’t think he will ever change. He is at ease with himself. He doesn’t crave adulation, he loves his racing. He is fundamentally just a racer.”

Horner – who reasserted his conviction that his team were within F1’s spending cap last season – is no stranger to dealing with a driver at the peak of their powers and delivering extraordinary success. He rode the crest of a wave with Sebastian Vettel, as the German and the team returned four consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ championships between 2010 and 2013. Verstappen might yet achieve a similar feat.

The team’s investment in Verstappen began when they signed him to the Red Bull junior team in 2014. Part of the deal that saw off the eager attempts of Mercedes to also seal his services was a commitment to a drive with Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso in 2015, making him the youngest ever driver in F1.

By 2016 he had impressed sufficiently to be promoted to Red Bull. It was a remarkable advance for a driver who had gone from karting, to one season in F3 single seaters, to F1 and then to one of the most competitive teams in the sport.

A typically ballsy pass at the flat-out Blanchimont corner at the Belgian GP in 2015 convinced Horner that he was ready to step up. “What stood out was Spa, when he drove round the outside of Felipe Nasr,” he recalls. “I thought: ‘This boy is properly brave, committed and quick.’ You saw it that season, he was a shining star. It was evident immediately he was a prodigious talent.”

Horner described Verstappen as a prodigious talent and expects him to improve further during the rest of his career. Photograph: ANP/Getty Images

A win on his debut for Red Bull in Barcelona was a masterclass of working his tyres brilliantly – a skill for which he is often unrecognised – and defending against a late charge from Kimi Räikkönen in a quicker Ferrari, was one which Horner still appears a little in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like it, what we witnessed that day was something special,” he says.

Yet Verstappen was still far from perfect, certainly a way yet from the almost flawless performances that have defined this season, where he has 11 wins from 17 races. He was error prone when trying too much, going too hard and too aggressive, which drew criticism from other drivers. But he was still young and growing up in the spotlight.

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After public exasperation from the team with a crash at Monaco in practice in 2018 that cost him a shot at what would have likely been a win, Horner had a word. It was a pivotal moment. The Verstappen that emerged afterwards was a different character, a driver ready to compete for a title the moment Red Bull gave him the car to do so, as he proved after a titanic battle with Lewis Hamilton last year. So how had Horner turned the tide?

“I was open with him,” he says. “I told him: ‘You are more than quick enough, you don’t have to win every battle in the first corner. Take your time.’ He went away, had a think about things and the driver that turned up at the next round in Montreal, well, he was like a metronome.”

That ability to deliver relentlessly has been key this season and Horner repeatedly refers to Verstappen’s maturity, despite his still relatively tender years. The self assurance he enjoyed as a youngster has now developed into the refined judgment of an adult.

The title is assuredly his this year and Horner, who is optimistic there will be more, had high praise indeed for this family-friendly, nice lad who has returned his team to the top of the F1 pile.

“The great thing is he is just open to pushing himself in all areas, he always feels there’s more to be had,” he says. “He is quite clearly the most talented driver that I think we have had in one of our cars.”

Both practice sessions took place in the wet at Suzuka, with rain falling on and off throughout the day, limiting some of the running. Fernando Alonso was quickest in the first session. In FP2, George Russell and Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two on a wet track, with Verstappen in third. Qualifying is expected to be dry on Saturday however.