At the end of the first stint, Verstappen stirred over the on-board radio. The nine-time Grand Prix winner was of the opinion that Red Bull left him out on worn rubber for too long and did not hesitate to make this clear several times. “That’s the temperament that sometimes runs off with Max. But in this case it was just stupid, because everything is broadcast,” Marko said in conversation with Sky Sports Germany.
“He has to leave the tactics to us. We looked at exactly how far he could with those tires and we knew that sometimes it would be at the limit,” continues the Austrian top adviser to the energy drinks team. “For us, the most important thing was to keep Bottas behind us and we succeeded in the end. This result was also the highest possible. To split the Mercedes cars here is a success in itself.”
Horner is of a similar opinion on the latter. He also states that Verstappen has performed maximally on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. However, it is a bit milder about the much-discussed on-board radios. “You can hear from him that he is very ambitious and motivated”, he says via the English branch of Sky Sports know. Nevertheless, Horner also understands Marko’s vision. “Max doesn’t have the full overview from the car that our tacticians have. We didn’t want to get him into traffic to avoid burning his tires. On top of that, we weren’t sure we were going to see the remaining stints. could stretch long enough. With too short a first stint we might get ourselves in trouble at the end of the race. “
“At the same time, it is also unbelievable that Max has free disk space to have such conversations. It is as if he is on a quiet Sunday ride,” Horner continues when he hears the statements from Verstappen. Horner’s comment fits in with earlier statements by Ross Brawn, who sees Verstappen’s ‘extra disk space’ as an agreement with Michael Schumacher. Furthermore, according to Horner, there should not be too much research behind it. “Those soft tires felt bad for the drivers anyway. This made Max extra sensitive to abnormal movements in the car and to the feeling of wear. And besides: our race was not focused on Lewis, but mainly to keep Valtteri behind us. . “
