Max Verstappen's drive in the wet compares with Senna and Schumacher, says Horner
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner says Max Verstappen’s drive to third place in Brazil stands comparison with some of the best wet-weather performances of Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.
The Dutchman charged from 14th to third in the closing laps after pitting under the last safety car period when a gamble on intermediate tires did not pay off.
“I think it's right up there,” said Horner. “You have to compare it to those great moments. You don't often witness a motor race like that and I think what we saw today was something very, very special.”
Earlier in the race, Verstappen passed both Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg at restarts after safety cars.
“It was a difficult motor race for everybody,” added Horner. “The conditions were tricky all afternoon, but after the race got under way, he quickly moved past Kimi, a very decisive move into Turn One, and you could see from that point onwards he meant business all afternoon. At the next restart, a fairly audacious move on Nico round the outside of Turn 3 was really only the start of things to come.
“After the restart and the red flag section, it looked like the intermediate tires were looking like the tire to be on, and as we’ve seen so many times once you generate a bit of heat in those tires, they are the much quicker tire. We elected to put Daniel on them initially, and immediately he started setting purple sectors, and went a second quicker than anybody else on track, which prompted us to take the risk and go for the change with Max. Unfortunately, not long after that the rain just intensified very slightly. Just enough to make the final sector pretty tricky.”
In the end RBR, decided to make another stop and put him back on extreme wets.
“Then after another safety car, we had the difficult decision to make to sacrifice track position versus going onto the, if you like, the safer tire. After discussing it with Max we decided to go onto the extreme and the same with Daniel. So both drivers had a reasonably fresh set of extremes fitted. It was really all over to him for those final 15 laps. He drove an incredible race, losing very little time in each of the passing moves that he made. To be able to finish the Grand Prix in third position. Demonstrated what a great talent he is.”
The only scare was a spectacular half spin on the pit straight early in the race.
“I think that almost necessitated an underwear change for most of the pit wall but again he was extremely calm the way he came on the radio he seemed in control apart from that moment, all afternoon.”
Meanwhile, Ricciardo was handicapped by visibility problems: “He had an issue with his visor. The rain wasn't running properly down the visor, and it started to fog so he was struggling for visibility out there, which when visibility was as it was, he said he didn't see Max until he was ahead of him. So, obviously an issue to understand, what happened there.”
