Horner believes Verstappen is having to do most of his learning in a public area

Verstappen’s exciting driving is what caught the eye of a lot of Red Bull fans when he initially signed on for the team from Toro Rosso.

His overtaking abilities and aggressive driving have presented Red Bull with a ‘double-edged sword’ situation.

Verstappen also has been a little careless with his driving, not showing enough maturity on the racetrack and getting himself and his team into trouble.

Christian Horner believes that the reason for Verstappen’s ‘crashes’ and ‘mistakes’ is that he maybe came into the F1 circuit a tad too early.

A lot of the drivers who come into F1 have already committed all of these mistakes in the ‘lower formulas’.

“Look, Max arrived in F1 very quickly,” said Horner.

“So he is doing his learning in a very public arena and is in a front-running car very quickly.

“Most guys would have gone through some of this in the lower formulas that you wouldn’t have even seen, whereas he is having to deal with it in a very public arena. I’m sure he will emerge from it on the other side.” he added.

Verstappen and Ricciardo haven’t been too far off each other with respect to qualifying and race pace, however, Ricciardo has managed himself and his car better in the last few races and hence has two race wins this season.

Horner believes that Ricciardo is experiencing a purple patch at the moment, something that was quite evident from the way that he drove in Monaco.

“Since the beginning of 2016 when they got together it’s been no more than a tenth or so between the two of them.

“Daniel has continuously raised his game and I think he is in a purple patch of his career now at 28 years of age. He’s got the experience, he’s got the speed and [Monaco] was a great example of problem management under pressure.” Horner concluded.