Christian Horner takes swipe at Toto Wolff after Mercedes concede defeat to Red Bull and Max Verstappen
Red Bull boss Christian Horner vowed to ignore Mercedes rival Toto Wolff after he claimed Max Verstappen’s dominant win in Japan proved a fourth world title was a formality.
Verstappen led home Sergio Perez at Suzuka in another Red Bull one-two to lead the drivers’ championship by 13 points and lay down an ominous marker to the rest of the grid.
Carlos Sainz – the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race since 2022 – pipped Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc to the other podium place, with McLaren’s Lando Norris taking fifth.
Mercedes pair George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were seventh and ninth respectively and Wolff said: “No one is going to catch Max this year.
“His driving and the car are just spectacular. You can see the way he manages the tyres and basically this season now is best of the rest.
“If I was to look from a pure sporting point of view it is P1 what matters, not P2, P3 or P4 but this is the reality that we are facing at the moment.
“We’re trying to do the best out of this new reality and that is to beat our competitors while acknowledging that somebody is just doing a better job and setting the benchmark that we eventually need to set ourselves again.”
Red Bull showed that Verstappen’s retirement in the previous race was a one-off but Horner was quick to dismiss Wolff throwing in the towel as kidology.
“It’s very early to write off the year. There’s still 20 races to go,” he said. “I’ve learned not to listen too much to what Toto says over the years.
“It was great to bounce back after the DNF in Australia. After such a great start to the season, it was important to bounce back quickly. I think that we’ve done that emphatically this weekend. It’s a great performance.”
Verstappen, who converted pole position into his third win from four races this season despite a crash forcing a restart, has flirted with a move to Mercedes amid tensions at Red Bull.
“Lately Toto’s been really nice, saying a lot of nice things about me,” the Dutchman joked.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso won a three-way fight for sixth with Russell and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who was passed on the last lap.
