Max Verstappen can be placed in the same bracket as Formula 1’s leading luminaries, according to Red Bull boss Christian Horner, after he matched Ayrton Senna’s win tally.
Reigning two-time champion Verstappen equalled Senna by claiming the 41st victory of his career in Canada.
Verstappen already holds a 69-point advantage over Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez in his pursuit of a hat-trick of world championships.
Only Lewis Hamilton (103), Michael Schumacher (91), Sebastian Vettel (53) and Alain Prost (51) have won more races than Verstappen.
“What we’re witnessing with Max is the emergence of another mega talent and you can start to talk about him in the same sentences as the greats now,” said Horner.
“Having matched Ayrton Senna, I thought the podium was actually very apt of the last couple of decades of Formula 1 with Max, Fernando and Lewis up there.
“He’s 25 years if age, to have won 41 grands prix and two world championships so far is an incredible performance.”
Verstappen’s win was also the 100th for Red Bull Racing since it took over the entry from Jaguar for 2005.
“[Dietrich Mateschitz] wanted to be different, he didn’t want to be a corporate team where you needed 25 passes to get into the motorhome,” said Horner.
“He introduced the Energy Station, he introduced the Red Bulletin – he wanted it to be fun. But he was also competitive and he wanted to compete and he wanted to win.
“I remember the first year, Jaguar had scored nine points in 2004 and he gave me the target of scoring 12 in that first season. We scored 34.
“We won our first race in 2009 – four years after coming into the sport – and I remember collecting the trophy that day and getting on the plane to go home that evening and thinking “Well, at least we’ve won one. If nothing else happens, we’ve won a race”.
“It felt so good it was like “Well we want to feel that again!”. Who’d have thought 99 victories [later] we’d achieve a century?”
