Christian Horner snubs Verstappen’s Abu Dhabi Hamilton victory when asked greatest win

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Christian Horner has snubbed Max Verstappen’s remarkable 2021 world championship triumph in favour of Sebastian Vettel’s victory in 2010 as the Red Bull team principal’s favourite moment in Formula One. Vettel sensationally overcame Fernando Alonso 12 years ago to win the first of his four world titles. 

Vettel had gone into the final Grand Prix of the season expected to come second in the drivers’ championship to Alonso. But the German won in Abu Dhabi to defeat the Spaniard. 

And Horner believes it is Red Bull’s greatest moment in the sport. He ranks Vettel’s victory over Verstappen’s win last year. 

Verstappen controversially raced away from Lewis Hamilton following a contentious Michael Masi decision. 

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Explaining his decision to pick Vettel over Verstappen, Horner told the Cambridge Union: “Probably because it was completely against the odds, Sebastian winning the last race in Abu Dhabi, because he hadn’t led the championship at all that year in 2010,” Horner told the Cambridge Union when asked about Red Bull’s greatest day.

“Fernando Alonso was the favourite to win that championship and that race, and literally against the odds, Sebastian won and where Fernando and Mark [Webber] finished behind him, was enough for him to become the world champion. So it was completely against the odds.”

Verstappen is the favourite to retain his title in 2022. He leads Charles Leclerc by a whopping 80 points at the summer break. 

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But Horner believes the Dutchman is very different to four-times champion Vettel. He added: “They are totally different. Sebastian is very meticulous, into every element of data, every aspect of what’s going on with the car, every component on the car.

“He often would be the last to leave the circuit, and his debriefs – it would take him half an hour just to explain the formation lap, let alone the race.

“Whereas Max is much more simplistic. He’s just this very raw talent. He’s the hungriest driver I’ve ever come across and he just wants to win. He’ll give you very straightforward feedback, is very straightforward to his race engineer. They’re like an old married couple at times.

“But you know every lap he’s going to give you 110 per-cent. And he demands the same from the team. So, they are very different personalities, very different characters. But I would say the one thing they do have in common is their ambition.”

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