Max Verstappen’s latest collision with Lewis Hamilton and angry radio comments were the focus of attention after his drive to fifth in last week’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
But his Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes his driver made a more significant mistake which potentially cost him a better result. As Verstappen prepares to fight his way through from 11th on the grid in today’s Belgian Grand Prix, it’s a point Red Bull have no doubt reinforced to him.
Long before Verstappen’s spectacular lap 62 tangle with the Mercedes, he made repeated attempts to overtake his rival. One of those, on lap 35, looked like it was a done deal, until Verstappen understeered wide at turn two and the Mercedes nipped back through.
For Horner, that was the pivotal moment of the race. Later, Verstappen gave the Red Bull pit wall both barrels when they failed to bring him in for his final pit stop before Hamilton, dooming him to start his final stint behind the Mercedes, which led to their collision. But Horner believes the team’s strategy would have allowed Verstappen to chase down the McLaren drivers in the final stint if he hadn’t blown his chance to pass Hamilton at half-distance.
“That race hinged on the middle point where, if Max had managed to get the pass – I think we underestimated the overtaking delta, if we could run that again, that’s what we do differently – if he’d have made that pass around the outside of Lewis, circa half-distance, it was a different race,” he told Sky.
“The second half would have come alive. The overlap we’d have had, we still had a set of mediums available to us [for the final stint], and if you look at his pace on the hard tyre, he would have closed in on the McLarens and we would have been putting them under pressure. Sometimes the margins are very fine and then we’d be talking about what a fantastic strategy it was.”
Red Bull came into the Belgian Grand Prix planning to change Verstappen’s engine, dooming him to a midfield start and a fight through the field. Given the excellent pace Red Bull have shown so far this weekend, he can’t be ruled out as a contender for victory, even if the team are publicly capping their expectations at a podium finish.
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No doubt getting past the McLarens will prove a challenge, as they have been the most consistent threat to Red Bull so far this season. But…
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