Horner delighted with Verstappen’s performance after engine-related issues on Friday

After a tough opening day at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has been left impressed by Max Verstappen’s performance after engine-related issues cut the Duthman’s Friday running short.

Max Verstappen got a tough start to his weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Although he was not required to hand over his car to a rookie driver, he lost valuable track time during Friday after engine issues forced him to sit out the majority of the second ninety-minute session.

Despite the limited track time, the Dutch driver looked fairly competitive in the third and final practice session, and Red Bull managed to fine-tune his car for the all-important qualifying by making several tweaks to the setup.

The championship leader revealed that he had expected a difficult qualifying session, but the setup changes have made his RB20 “more driveable” which allowed him to push his car to the limit.

“Max did a fantastic job today considering he lost most of yesterday. He was on the back foot coming into today so to qualify on the front row is a brilliant performance.

“Hats off to Carlos though, he has been very fast all weekend and put down two laps that were good enough for pole, he will be tough to beat tomorrow.”

Sergio Perez wasn’t happy with his car during the three practice session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez as he couldn’t find the limits under braking.

The Mexican driver and Red Bull were unable to fix the issues, which means that the home hero exited in Q1 for the first time in Mexico, and will only line up in P18 in front of his passionate home crowd.

Speaking of the issues, Perez noted that while he was “super disappointed”, he was not surprised by the braking issues as similar problems hindered his performance in the previous two rounds, Singapore and Austin.

Commenting on Perez’s disappointing showing in qualifying, Horner noted: “Checo has been struggling with the car under breaking and on corner entry.

“There is a big difference in the time between the two cars and it is of course very disappointing for him infront of his home crowd but I am sure he will give it everything he can tomorrow.”