Christian Horner has described the differences that he has seen in Max Verstappen this season compared to his first F1 championship year. Verstappen's dominant season was recognised at the FIA Prize Giving ceremony, with the Dutchman claiming the Drivers' Championship trophy for the second time. Speaking at the event, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner believed that he had seen extra maturity from Verstappen's driving in 2022. "I think that Max, after winning that first World Championship last year which was like a heavyweight bout from the first race to the last race, has just made another step forward as a driver," Horner told media, including RacingNews365.com . "He's driven with such maturity with such composure this year, and he's delivered some massive wins under huge pressure."
Horner cites high-pressure races in dominant year
With Red Bull initially struggling to compete with Ferrari, the team recovered from reliability woes and out-developed their rivals to secure 17 wins in a record-breaking campaign. In the early-season battles, Horner believed that Verstappen's ability to cope with the high pressure races were a boost to Red Bull's early championship hopes. "It's only when you look back at the season – and we've only started to do that in this last week – when you think back to some of the races like Saudi or Miami or Montreal, there's been some massive moments there," added Horner. "We didn't have the quickest car at the beginning of the year, and he very much kept us in contention and just kept pushing and drove with phenomenal precision and pace. "When there was an opportunity to take, he grabbed it with both hands."
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