Horner hints at Red Bull team orders to come

Christian Horner has hinted that Red Bull could implement team orders to "maximise each result" in the championship run-in.

Max Verstappen leads the drivers' championship by 80 points from Charles Leclerc with nine races remaining.

Although Sergio Perez trailed his team-mate by just 15 after taking victory in the Monaco Grand Prix, a series of poor results - including two reliability issues - have dropped the Mexican 85 back.

Asked by GPFans if Red Bull has now reached the stage where it would need to favour Verstappen over Perez, team principal Horner said: “The team will just do the best that we can to maximise each result, each opportunity that we have.

"Max is in a strong place in a drivers' championship, but we've seen how quickly things can turn around. We're taking nothing for granted.

"There's still such a lot of racing still to do and a sprint race still to come. We're going to treat each weekend as we have done so far this year and look to maximise our points versus our competitors.”

Perez recently commented that upgrades to the RB18 were "going away from me" and suiting Verstappen more.

Commenting on what he believes has gone wrong for the Mexican, Horner added: “I think he's had a couple of bits of bad luck like [the gearbox issue] in Montreal.

"Obviously, Austria was frustrating. He lost a lot of points in Austria but he'll find his feet. I've got no doubt about that."