It was a great weekend for Red Bull after the terrible Bahrain start. Certainly one to remember for both Sergio Perez, who secured yesterday his first ever pole position, and for Max Verstappen. The reigning champion got his first win of the year after a tight fight with Leclerc after a less than impressive qualifying. 

Team Principal Christian Horner was extremely pleased with his drivers's performances and the overall race, as he told Sky Sports:

"That DRS is so powerful now this way, you can see neither driver wanted to get it! It was actually braked and accelerated back towards the corner. What a great race and it was an exciting last few laps but thankfully we just had enough to to bring it home."

It wasn't a simple race for Verstappen, who was fighting for the win extremely close to the Ferrari driver while also looking after his tyres and hoping that his engine wouldn't stop yet another time in the final laps. 

"But it was a very patient race for Max, you know, he locked up the tyres for the end of the race there. And then, after that last safety car, he really went for it."

Horner feels bad for Perez, who had been leading the race until lap 16, when a safety car was issued just after his pit. He went on to end the race in P4, but the missed podium doesn't impact the TP's opinion on the "brilliant" driving he showcased all weekend:

"Bad luck for Checo. He has done all that hard work at the beginning of the race for then just have the safety car come out at the wrong time. You know, you can't do anything about that, but a great weekend."

"He has drove brilliantly all the weekend. I think it's taken a lot of his confidence, to get that pole, and his race pace was great. He just got unlucky with a track position with a safety car. But, as we've seen that, it sometimes happens."

The team that has clearly benefitted the most so far from the new regulations is Ferrari. Horner isn't surprised by that, and has only words of praise for the Italian team leading both the drivers' and the constructors'standings after the first two rounds:

"I mean, they've got a great car, they've got great drivers. It was a really tough battle today. And I think, you know, if that's what we're set for for the rest of the season is going to be from, what we've seen in the first two races, it's going to be epic."

A key factor in this year's title fight, even more than in 2021, is going to be the car development on these new generation of cars, especially keeping in mind the always decreasing budget cap.

"It is now [a development battle] and it's about the cost cap, about where you place your development and you know, we got to keep winding the handle hard now because, under such young, new regulations, the steps are going to be big and fast and, our opponents aren't going to stand still. So we've got to get development coming through for this car."

In spite of the evident issues Red Bull's most consistent opponent last year has been going through, with Lewis Hamilton barely scraping a point in today's race,  Horner isn't ready to count them out of the title fight already:

"Well, they're all competitive teams. I mean, Ferrari is a big team. you know, it's been a sleeping giant for a couple of years and they've got great strength and depth. and it was just a great motor race today. I mean, we enjoyed it, it was good, hard racing between the drivers. And, yeah, you know let's see what happens in Australia."