Christian Horner reckons 2022 was the ‘strongest’ Red Bull has ever been in the history of F1 after sealing both the titles for the first time in hybrid era.
For Red Bull, the 2022 F1 season was far and away their strongest campaign ever. It even surpassed the heady days of 2010 to 2013 when Sebastian Vettel netted his four driver’s titles, as the team had its first hybrid era trophy and aided Max Verstappen to his second.
Their strongest season “on” track in terms of competition and they did it the hard way after the terrific start made by their chief rivals Ferrari. After Red Bull sorted themselves out, quite simply there was no stopping them.
They certainly started slowly but after the first few rounds, there was no stopping them with 15 wins to Verstappen – a new record. “I think as a team I think we got these regulations right, which considering we were the last team to transition on to them after what happened last year,” said Horner to media.
“I think out team has done an amazing job in coming up with such a competitive car and bouncing back from a double DNF when Ferrari scored a 1-2 finish in Bahrain. We never lost sight of what our target was and by the time we got to Imola, winning the sprint and the grand prix with our first 1-2 of the year, that put the pressure back on Ferrari”.
“It didn’t give them breathing space we kept efficiently developing the car, managing to lose a little bit of weight and Max has been in sensational form this year. You think back to some of the races that were so tight in the early races with Ferrari, like Miami, Saudi and even Bahrain. It’s been an incredible season for us,” summed up Horner.
And while it was a strong effort on track for 22 race weekends, it was not just trackside as a myriad of work was being undertaken back at base in their headquarters at Milton Keynes. Horner concurs it really was a team effort where he notes that this was the strongest Red Bull has ever been in terms of the work they have done.
“It’s all down to the people, this is the strongest Red Bull have ever been,” continued Horner. “The strength in depth that we have Technically, Operationally, throughout the business is…well, everybody has gone that extra year which you need to do to achieve the kind of results that we have against opposition that is world class”.
“Nobody ever lost sight of the target after eight years in the wilderness effectively of keeping that momentum going, keeping that focus and determination and when we got the chance we grabbed it both hands,” summed up Horner.
All in all, one can see it was not all about Verstappen and Sergio Perez or the team chiefs. The amount of people it took to get them to where they finished was not lost on Horner especially after the 2021 season they had against Mercedes.
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