Horner feels there are great things coming for Verstappen

After suffering a torrid and frustrating first half of the season, Max Verstappen will bounce back even stronger in the second half of the year according to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. Verstappen has retired from five races so far this year, with reliability problems and opening lap scuffles ending his Grand Prix early.

He has also claimed just one podium, while teammate Daniel Ricciardo has five, including a race victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Dutchman is 50 points behind Ricciardo in the championship, but Horner reckons that Verstappen will come back strong when the summer break ends at the end of August.

"When we introduced the car as RB13 there was a bit of a debate, should we call it 12a or should we use the number 13 and then we came up with the slogan that '13 is lucky for some and unlucky for others'. You could say it's certainly been more lucky for Daniel and it's been unlucky for Max, but his driving - he's just continued to evolve.

"He's driving at such a high standard now and the bad luck that he endured in four successive races or whatever it was prior to Silverstone, it was just massively unfortunate. In each one of those races he was in a great position. Second in Montreal, he was in a great position in Azerbaijan, again in Austria.

"It's been very frustrating for him but he's handled it well and I think it's broadened his shoulders as a 19 year-old. He's still a young guy, he hasn't done a huge amount of car racing since he stepped out of karts three or four years ago. I think he'll actually come out of the other side stronger for it and I'm pretty confident the second half of the year, for him, you'll see some great things."

The first race after the summer break is the Belgian Grand Prix, where there's expectation that a large number of Dutch fans will arrive to cheer on the 19-year-old. Horner is hoping that Red Bull can be competitive around F1's longest circuit so Verstappen can put on a show for his supporters.

"Spa is going to be a huge race for Max. There will be a huge amount of Dutch and Belgian fans supporting Max. Hopefully we can be reasonable there. Austria we were hugely competitive, particularly on Sunday, on Saturday we are going to struggle. I can imagine us being fifth and sixth on the grid on a Saturday but quicker than that on a Sunday. The great thing about Spa is that you have the ability to overtake there. Monza I am trying not to think about!"

Fergal Walsh