‘Worst race’ no more: Horner texts Brundle as Verstappen turns Monza into a Red Bull statement
Christian Horner might no longer be in Red Bull uniform, but he was still watching closely as Max Verstappen dragged the RB21 back to the front at Monza — and he couldn’t resist dropping Martin Brundle a line about it.
During Sky F1’s coverage of the Italian Grand Prix, Brundle revealed a message from the former Red Bull boss mid-race. The gist: 12 months ago, Monza exposed the team. “This was our worst race last year. We had the wrong downforce level,” Horner wrote, adding praise for how hard Red Bull had worked to fix it. It was a neat bit of symmetry — and maybe a touch of satisfaction — as Verstappen sprinted off to deliver Red Bull’s first grand prix win since Imola.
Laurent Mekies, Horner’s successor as Red Bull Racing CEO after Horner’s post-British GP exit, banked his first victory at the helm as Verstappen’s metronomic pace overwhelmed McLaren and the rest. The Dutchman’s afternoon had a small early wobble — he was instructed to cede the lead to Lando Norris after cutting the first chicane — but once that box was ticked, Verstappen simply put the hammer down and disappeared.
We’ve seen plenty of dominant Monzas over the years; this was something else. The race went into the books as the fastest grand prix of all time at 1:13:24, a stat that flatters nobody except the car that could operate at that speed without blinking. For context, Verstappen finished the 2024 Italian GP 38 seconds shy of Charles Leclerc. Twelve months and one spec of aero discipline later, the low-drag RB21 looked perfectly trimmed for the old place.
It wasn’t just the stopwatch. Verstappen, who took pole with a new lap record, admitted he’d defied some internal scepticism on setup and committed to a direction that leaned into the car’s sweet spot. Monza is a ruthless exam of efficiency and stability on the brakes; he backed a low-downforce philosophy and the RB21 paid him back.
He’s not pretending the ceiling’s suddenly infinite. Verstappen’s read of the car is that it comes alive at low-to-medium downforce and gets trickier outside that window. “It’s still track-dependent,” he said post-race, making the point that this isn’t a magic switch that’ll win every Sunday. But the more interesting line was the one about understanding. Red Bull believe they know what the RB21 needs now, and that’s half the battle in a season where the margins at the front have been paper-thin.
The sight of Horner chiming in from the sidelines will raise eyebrows, but it also tracks. He was the team’s only boss from its 2005 debut until this summer’s split, and Monza’s particular pain point in 2024 — compounded by a misjudged wing level — was a sore memory internally. If anything, his message underscored the storyline: Red Bull identified a weakness and did the unfashionable work of turning it into a strength.
There was drama elsewhere, particularly at McLaren, where team orders once again drew heat. But the day belonged to Verstappen, who controlled it in that familiar, slightly unnerving way he does when the car and the circuit sing off the same hymn sheet. It also belonged, in a quieter way, to a Red Bull operation that’s had to wear a few bruises this season and just found a bit of its old strut again.
Two takeaways linger. One: Red Bull’s straight-line efficiency and braking consistency were back to the levels that make DRS trains vanish. Two: Verstappen’s confidence to plant a flag on setup, even against internal dissent, remains one of his greatest weapons. Give him a car that does as it’s told on corner entry and he’ll do the rest.
And if you’re keeping score on the human side of the sport, Horner’s cameo via Brundle was a reminder that no one really leaves the paddock mentally, even if their pass stops opening the garage door. On Sunday, as the orange grandstands sighed and the papaya pit wall second-guessed, Red Bull found their lane again. Monza, of all places. The worst race no more.
