There were plenty of talking points after the Chinese Grand Prix, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Christian Horner reacting post-race.
Verstappen, who finished P4 after a strong recovery in the second stint of the race, was asked about how the car came alive in the latter stages and whether or not it's something the team can look at improving on for the next Grand Prix in Japan.
He responded: "If it's possible to adjust, yeah. Certainly, I expected tyre grip, not balance, the balance was the same but more tyre grip where others maybe plateaued a bit more."
"Then the lap times were more promising for us and it was a bit more fun to drive and have a few battles."
He added: "The first half of the race was quite tough but we just set out to do our own pace. Before, in the Sprint, I tried to keep up with them but then my tyres died, so I did my own pace."
"The tyres were still in decent shape when I had to pit because others were pitting around me, but I also guess that's not how we want to race. I want to try at least to keep up and hang in there."
He continued: "A lot to analyse, but at least the second stint was a lot more positive, more promising as well for us and I hope we can take some learnings out of that going into Japan."
With the car improving incrementally over time, rather than taking large leaps or strides, Verstappen was asked about this.
He said: "It's difficult to say when you don't really know where, or how, to find it at the moment."
"At least that last stint I'd say gives us a clearer picture, but we'll go through all the data and we have ten days. Hopefully, we can learn a little bit more and be a bit more competitive in ten days."
Verstappen's future with Red Bull has been under constant watch from the media, helped recently by McLaren CEO Zak Brown's comments that he believes the four-time World Champion will leave after this season, likely to join Mercedes.
When asked about how much longer he'll give the team if the car remains tricky, Verstappen said: "I hear this all the time, but for me nothing changes. I'm actually relaxed, I'm very positive in my mind."
He concluded: "I'm enjoying life, so every time I jump into the car I just try to do the best I can. I'm not thinking about anything else, to be honest, because I feel good in life in general, if that's in the car or out of the car and that's actually what matters the most."
Team Principal and CEO Christian Horner was spoken to after the race, questioned on whether anything could have been done differently during the race.
He commented: "I think that first stint is where we gave away all the time. If you look at when Max came into the pit stop eighteen seconds behind Oscar [Piastri] and at the chequered flag he was sixteen seconds behind."
"On the hard tyre we were pretty competitive, so I think we need to understand. Maybe we overcompensated based on the degradation we saw yesterday, for sure we need to find a bit more pace and then life is a bit easier."
"[Verstappen] drove another great race today. He fought the Ferraris, he passed Charles, and a fourth-place finish and important points but we know we've still got plenty to do."
Horner was asked about whether or not the team might start looking at developing its 2026 car in favour of radical upgrades during the 2025 season.
To which, Horner replied: "It's race two. You can't be that defeatist. We're eight points behind in the Drivers' Championship after two races, there's everything to play for."
"If nothing else, last year teaches you that you can start as strong as you like, but it's the way you finish."
He added: "We've got great strength and depth in our team. Everybody in the company knows we've got a bit of pace to find. We've got the tools, we've got the people in order to do that, it's just unpicking it."
"I think we've got some very good data out of today. Max is working harder than I've ever seen him. He's more integrated into the engineering group than I've ever seen."
He continued: "As he said, he seems to be enjoying that aspect so he's not getting super stressed. He's, of course like any driver, an impatient performer but he's working with the engineers to say, okay what about this? This is what I'm experiencing as a driver, this is where I need the lap time from."
"That's the only way, collectively, we're going to get performance."
Verstappen's teammate, Liam Lawson, started from the pit lane after some changes to his car were made under parc ferme.
Horner explained: "We made the decision to take him off the grid, out of parc ferme, to try some radical changes on the setup because you're so limited in testing with these cars, so it made sense to say okay, we're starting at the back, let's try and learn something today."
"We've done that, we've got fifty-six laps of information with a radically different setup on the car. Again, that gives huge information back into the factory, back into that system as we're looking to improve our performance in the forthcoming races."
Lawson himself has come under fire for a difficult start to his time with Red Bull, something Horner was drawn into comment on also.
He said: "Liam is a great little racer, he gets his elbows out, he races hard. He's just struggling at the moment, finding the limit with his car, getting the most out of the car."
"As a team, as a group, we're looking to support him in the best way that we can. He'll be in the debrief giving information to the engineers very shortly."
When asked about Lawson's performances specifically, Horner explained: "You're always going for ultimate performance and fast cars are never easy cars to drive, but we know there's performance we need to find and we need both drivers up there."
"If there's to be any chance of fighting for a Constructors' Championship, and at the very least with the Drivers' Championship as well, you need to have a second car in play. You can't just do it one-legged."
"We want, as a team collectively, to be getting the best out of both drivers and getting both cars as far up the grid as we can."
On Lawson's comments yesterday about lacking time, Horner commented: "Look, Formula One is a pressure business and there's always time pressure. He knows that."
"Hopefully, he'll respond accordingly and we'll see where we go."
