Christian Horner insists Red Bull were never truly worried that Lando Norris was going to beat Max Verstappen to glory in Barcelona.

The margin of victory was close again in the end, Verstappen beating Norris to the chequered flag by just over two seconds. Had the race been a few laps longer, the charging McLaren man may have got the better of the championship leader.

Norris was furious with himself for a poor getaway off the line at the very start which allowed Verstappen and George Russell to get past. Had he kept the lead into the first corner, he felt he would most likely have won the race.

He certainly felt he had more race pace than anyone else. Norris declared: “I should have done [better]. I got a bad start, simple as that. The car was incredible today and I think we were for sure the quickest, I just lost it in the beginning.”

In a separate interview, he later doubled down and said: “Today, we were the quickest car – fact. The team deserved it and we were the quickest on track today, from start to finish. The overtaking and following in the dirty air cost me the win today, so I just didn’t do a good enough job.”

Horner, however, saw things differently. Asked by Sky Sports if the fact Verstappen was told to push hard until the end was an indicator that they felt they were inferior to the McLaren, the Red Bull team principal said he felt his driver was still showing the stronger pace at that late stage of the race.

He said: “We felt that he’d done such a good job managing the tyres. We could only see one corner where Lando was quicker, turn one, and the rest of the lap he had it covered. It was always going to get closer because of the offset in pit stops, but we always felt confident, from the tools that we had, that he had enough in hand.”

Lando Norris had to settle for second place behind Max Verstappen ( 
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)

Norris moved into second place in the drivers’ championship with his result, while McLaren proved once again they are capable of going toe-to-toe with Red Bull. And Horner is aware that his team is going to have to keep very high standards in the coming weeks and months to hold off their rivals.

He added: “Since Miami, Lando has been the stand-out competitor and we’ve had to be at the top of our game to be winning these races. They’ve been tight wins, but we keep winning which is the most important thing.

“McLaren are doing a great job, Ferrari aren’t far away and Mercedes have made progress as well. But we’re just keeping our nose ahead and it’s important that we keep pushing because there’s still a long, long way to go.”