Horner: Red Bull can win every race this season

Red Bull boss Christian Horner recognised after Sunday’s landmark Canadian Grand Prix that his runaway Formula One leaders could win every race this season.

“Can we? Yes. Will we? Who knows, because there are so many variables in this game,” Horner told Sky Sports after Max Verstappen took his 41st career win, equalling Ayrton Senna’s tally, and the team’s milestone 100th.

The question, often asked when a team starts with a winning sequence, is becoming a genuinely serious one now that the team’s victories are stacking up.

No team has won every race of a season since 1952 — McLaren coming closest in 1988 when Alain Prost and Senna won all but one of 16 rounds. Mercedes won 19 of 21 in 2016 and there are 22 this year.

Verstappen has won six of the eight races this season, including the last four in a row, but there are glimmers of hope for his rivals.

The winning margin at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was the smallest so far, not including Australia which effectively ended behind the safety car.

Verstappen finished 9.5 seconds clear of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, compared to the 24 seconds over Mercedes’s runner-up Lewis Hamilton in Spain or the 27.9 seconds over Alonso in Monaco.

The true extent of the gap may have been distorted by Verstappen controlling the race from pole position, although he said he had to push hard to get heat in the tyres, and having a dead bird wedged behind a front brake duct.

“On this venue yes, the gap is shorter … It’s inevitable that they are closing, we’d be surprised if that wouldn’t be the case,” Horner said.

If there is an Achilles’ heel in Red Bull’s dominance, it is the current dependence on Verstappen for the top step of the podium.

Team mate Sergio Perez is now 69 points adrift, albeit still second in the standings, and has not qualified in the top 10 or stood on the podium in the last three races after a strong start to the campaign.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso is now only nine points behind Perez, who was sixth in Montreal, and, asked whether he felt he could beat him in the championship, replied simply: “Yes”.

The last time Max Verstappen was beaten by someone not in a Red Bull was last November, when Mercedes’s George Russell won in Brazil.