Christian Horner fires back at Mercedes chief: ‘We beat their upgrade’

Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner cheekily hit back at Mercedes technical director James Allison over the world champions’ upgrade at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Before Sunday’s race in Montreal, Allison believed Red Bull had taken a step backwards, saying: “It does look as if their upgrade was a downgrade. So fingers crossed that would really mess them up.

“That makes life hard because the moment you stop trusting your tools, you have to backtrack, and you lose loads of time. Time is your biggest friend, losing it is your worst enemy.”

However, after Max Verstappen triumphed for the third year running in Canada and held off the challenge of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in the process, Horner could not resist a dig back at Allison.

“Even with our downgrade, we managed to beat their upgrade,” he said. “It was a rewarding race to win.

“The last couple of races have been more choppy waters for us but we have still managed to win two out of the last three races.

“We had a pole in Imola, we managed to match the pole time here with a car that both drivers are feeling its deficiencies. So there is a lot of focus on that to see if we can improve that.”

Red Bull have won six of the first nine races of the year, while Mercedes have won just once in the last two-and-a-half years.

Verstappen, meanwhile, has a 56-point lead in the drivers’ championship to Charles Leclerc in second.

Horner added: “We know there are circuits later in the year like Singapore where it [ride issues] could be a factor. But we really expect Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes who came into that window this weekend, to be competitive at every circuit.

“So I think despite having won six of the nine races, we are going to have to be top of our game to keep eking out a gap.”

F1 now has a sustained summer period in Europe, starting with the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona next week.