Horner delighted after a "solid day" for Red Bull at Montreal
Despite failing to win the Canadian Grand Prix, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner branded Sunday's Montreal race as "a solid day" as Verstappen managed to get closer to championship leader Oscar Piastri in the standings.
Having fractionally missed out on pole position in qualifying, four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen started from P2 on the grid at Montreal.
The Dutchman had a great start, but he was unable to pick polesitter George Russell off, but kept a close watch on the Mercedes. Despite unning in the dirty air, he was able to hang on to the Mercedes driver for the opening laps, but was unable to make a move.
Having suffered from higher than expected tyre degradation, Verstappen pitted early, but his second stint was not much better as he struggled to keep his rear tyres alive.
However, his final stint saw Verstappen fly, and he was able to get a bit closer to Russell, but he had to settle for second at the 70-lap Montreal race.
As for his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, the Canadian Grand Prix was another race to forget. The Japanese driver started P18 after his ten-place grid drop penalty.
Although he elected to complete the race distance with a one-stop strategy, he couldn’t quite make it back to the top 10, to make it a run of three races without points.
Despite failing to win the Canadian Grand Prix, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner branded Sunday's Montreal race as "a solid day" as Verstappen managed to get closer to championship leader Oscar Piastri in the standings.
"It was a good race by Max today, he was competitive from start to finish, so it’s been a solid day in the Drivers’ Championship and those are good points for Max.
"We were competitive in the last stint and there were probably points in the race we could have maybe pushed a bit harder, but certainly that final stint was pretty competitive.
"We will focus on the race and take the positives out of it. McLaren obviously had a difficult race in the end today and you have to be there to capitalise on it in the end, you can only focus on yourselves.
"McLaren have two guys racing hard and they have actually done quite well that it’s taken 10 races for something like that to happen. That is racing and on days like that you have to try and take advantage.
"Mercedes have done a good job here this weekend and it just shows how things can shift around. Well done to them and well done to George, we will fight back at the next one.
Signing off with a word for Tsunoda, Horner added: "I thought as a Team we did a good job today and got everything out of it that we could. Yuki drove a good race on a one stop today and he was unlucky not to get points in the end."
