Horner heaps praise on ‘stronger’ Verstappen

Christian Horner has praised Max Verstappen for the way he has handled himself throughout a tough stage of his blossoming career at Red Bull.

The Dutch teenager ended an awful run of five retirements in just seven races with a fourth-place finish at the British Grand Prix, and Horner is delighted with Verstappen’s attitude for someone so young.

“I think he has shown tremendous maturity, to be honest with you,” Horner told Autosport.

“He’s had a flair of emotion at the time, but very quickly he’s got himself under control and focused on the next event.

“The way he’s driving this season, he’s just getting stronger and stronger.

“It’s been a bit of character building for him.

“I think he’ll come out the other side a stronger person with this being a difficult part in his very short career so far. But he has dealt with it very, very well.

“He hasn’t been spitting his dummy or throwing his toys out of the pram.

“He’s had his moment at the race, which is understandable, and then very quickly, boom, focused on the next event. His work ethic is very strong.

“He’s 19, he’s 20 later this year. It’s often easy to forget that this is a guy that can’t even rent a hire car here.

“He should have only just finished his education before going to university.

Horner is also impressed with the strong levels of support that Verstappen commands, especially at the Austrian Grand Prix where an army of 10,000 fans flocked to see him.

“So for somebody so young, the way he’s handled all the pressure [is impressive given] the expectation and now the interest particularly in his home country, which follows him around the world.

“You’ve only got to look at the contingent of Dutch fans at Silverstone over the weekend and particularly in Austria just over a week ago.

“And I’m sure Spa is going to be nuts as well this year. It’s impressive how he deals with that interest.”

Horner now wants Verstappen to be able to use his Silverstone finish as a strong platform to build on for the rest of the season.

“It was pleasing to see him take the chequered flag [at Silverstone] because the last three races, he’s been in great positions and in all three [previous] races and it hasn’t gone his way,” said Horner.

“Now we need to start to keep building on that.

“Hungary represents hopefully a chance of a good result for us so we need to build on what we achieved over the [Silverstone] weekend.”