Number of points makes Red Bull considerably poorer: 'I was shocked by the bill'

Christian Horner is a happy man. After eight years, his Red Bull Racing managed to win the constructors' title again. On Friday evening, he will receive the trophy for it at the annual FIA gala in Bologna.

The awards ceremony marks the official end of a great season for the Austrian team. Ahead of the gala, Horner looked back on the year at the press conference. “It’s very very special, especially with the season we had and all the statistics you read out, we’ve broken a lot of our own records, I mean these two guys have been truly amazing this year. I mean Max has had an outstanding season and I think the effort that has gone in behind the scenes, I think the biggest regulation change in 40 years and the whole team in Milton Keynes rose to that challenge magnificently and to have achieved those 17 race wins, two Sprint wins out of three, five one-two finishes.

Fantastic president

Red Bull picked up no less than 17 victories, won two sprint races and finished first and second in a Grand Prix five times. "759 points," Horner said. "I didn’t realize how much we had to pay the FIA for the points, got the bill the other day and it was incredible (here you read how this works). It’s been incredible and so for the first time to pick up the trophy from Mohammed, I picked the first trophy up from Jean Todt in his first year of his presidency, so it's fantastic to be picking up the trophy from out fantastic president.

Horner is particularly proud of Red Bull's development. "I think they (Ferrari) had a faster car than us earlier in the season, I think that we were able to stay in touch and that was very very important, our championship was 21 races because we missed the first one having a double-DNF, but we had to stick with them."

The turning point for Horner came in Italy. "For me, one of the crucial weekends was Imola, with the Sprint race and then the victory and to win both those races and achieve the one-two finish, beating Ferrari on their home ground was psychologically a big thing for us and potentially for them as well. We developed the car and we improved the car and we lost a little bit of weight, then the speed came and these guys have been fantastic this year.”