Max Verstappen's charge in China was 'remarkable,' says Horner
Red Bull team boss Christina Horner says that Max Verstappen’s early charge in the Chinese GP was remarkable, as the Dutchman took advantage of a damp track to charge up to third by the time the safety car intervened.
Verstappen, who has established himself as a wet-weather ace, lost a place to Sebastian Vettel, but gained one back from teammate Daniel Ricciardo, whose own fourth place finish made it a good day for the team.
“Remarkable,” said Horner of Verstappen. “His first lap in particular was mighty. I saw one of his passing moves where he went down the outside and passed about three cars, and it was obvious that he meant business. He emerged from the first lap in sixth or seventh place, so it was hugely impressive.
“He appears to have an almost sixth sense in the wet. He doesn’t seem intimidated by it in any way and is prepared to explore all the boundaries of the circuit available to find where the grip is. There is one move he made on the outside of Turn 6 where he went straight down the outside of two or three cars and then cut back, and it was very, very impressive.”
Horner was delighted that circumstances played into the hands of Red Bull in the early laps.
“It was tricky in the conditions when the VSC came out, both of our drivers didn’t feel it was quite the timing to go onto the slicks, and I am pleased that they didn’t, but then of course as soon as the safety car then came out, we first of all pitted Max first and then Daniel was more keen to stay out than Max.
“But we were able to get him in and serviced and back into position without giving up a space, which miraculously put our cars in second and third position with the supersoft tire against Lewis on the soft, so by lap seven or eight of the Grand Prix we have two Ferraris behind us and a Mercedes ahead of us having come from fifth and 16th on the grid, that could not have worked out better.”
Both Red Bull drivers stayed in touch with Hamilton for a while, and then found themselves fighting both Vettel’s Ferrari, and each other.
“In the damp conditions they were able to put some pressure on Lewis. Max at that stage seemed happy with his car than Daniel and for the first time in the race they started to race each other and Max made a good pass with Daniel giving him enough space on lap 11, 12 and thereafter Max was able to chase after Lewis but as the circuit dried out, the performance advantage that Mercedes had shone through.
“At the same time Daniel was doing an amazing job keeping both the Ferraris behind him – Kimi and Seb. Seb managed to pass Kimi and then was able to pass Daniel, in great racing between the two guys, wheel to wheel racing as it should be, a puff of tire smoke, hard but fair, and then he was able to chase after Max. Max was running out of front tires at that stage, locked up, got a flat spot and Seb obviously was able to get straight past, that triggered his pit stop.
“We were always looking at the two-stop with the strategy that we had adopted after the safety car, and thereafter Max was able to get into it but very quickly he was quite front limited in terms of the setup that we had. And the objective at that point was catching Kimi, because we couldn’t understand his strategy, and it looked like we were going to have to close him down and pass him but he elected to pit. And then it was really just a straight battle between our two guys.
“Daniel at that stage of the race looked a lot more comfortable with his car, and then over the last 10 laps it was just a question of letting the guys race, and they did that fairly and it was the only thing we asked before the race and on the pit wall. They put on a great show for the big crowd today.”
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