McLaren produced a dominant 1-2 in Austria with Oscar Piastri sitting behind Lando Norris for large chunks of the race – which left Red Bull boss Christian Horner stunned

Christian Horner remains stunned at how the McLaren’s can race so close(Image: Mark Thompson, Getty Images)

Christian Horner was in awe of the McLaren pace on Sunday as he commented on how Oscar Piastri could follow Lando Norris so impressively it was as if the Australian was “making love to his exhaust pipe for lap after lap”.

McLaren enjoyed a 1-2 at the Red Bull Ring in Austria as they furthered their own lead in both championships. Norris led home Piastri with the two papaya cars in a world of their own as Charles Leclerc in third finished more than 19 seconds behind.

A hallmark of Formula 1 in recent years has been the struggle to follow. Cars have looked to overtake quickly or back off with the dirty air destroying their tyres, but that hasn’t been the case at McLaren.

In the first stint, after Piastri was able to overtake Leclerc, he then followed Norris for the best part of 20 laps as he looked to overtake his teammate. Throughout he often followed within a second without seeing his performance die off.

Horner, who had a miserable home race as he saw Max Verstappen retired on the opening lap after being hit, remains stunned that the two McLarens can operate as they are.

He said: “What’s truly impressive, and for me I can’t see any other team being able to do it, is when you look at how close Oscar is able to run behind Lando with a car fat on fuel at the beginning of the race. He’s basically making love to his exhaust pipe for lap after lap after lap, and the tyres are not dying.

“I mean, that to me is, you know, that is their advantage. They’ve managed to create a car that really protects its tyres very well and obviously has a good balance. I can’t see any other car that would be able to follow that closely and not grain the front tyres or the rear tyres. I don’t really understand.”

Oscar Piastri was able to follow closely behind Lando Norris for laps as he eyed the lead

McLaren are now 200 points clear in the teams’ standings whilst it looks like a straight shootout between Piastri and Norris for the title, even at this stage of the season. It would be McLaren’s first drivers’ title since Lewis Hamilton in 2008 if they did top the standings.

Norris responded impressively to his DNF in Canada and closes on his team-mate with a third win of the season as he said: “We had a great battle, that’s for sure! It was a lot of fun. For me, a lot of stress but a lot of fun. A nice battle, so well done to Oscar.”

Horner added on the current frontrunners: “McLaren, you can see how they are racing each other, they’ve got a cushion to the rest of the field. For us, we just focus one race at a time. So we don’t even think about championships.”