After Oracle Red Bull Racing‘s eleventh win of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season at the Dutch Grand Prix, Christian Horner has heaped praise on the team following another impressive showing.
Starting from pole position, Max Verstappen was able to maintain his lead on the opening lap but it soon became apparent that both Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team cars would have a pivotal role to play in the outcome of the race.
Verstappen pitted from the race lead during the safety car, which was forced out as a result of Valtteri Bottas’ retirement from the race. The championship leader rejoined the track in third position behind both Mercedes cars.
With a tenth race win of the season suddenly starting to look in doubt, George Russell’s decision to pit under the safety car subsequently made Verstappen’s task considerably easier. The Dutchmen was directly placed behind Lewis Hamilton, who was on old medium tyres, and Verstappen was able to pass his long-time rival with ease on the restart, as the Red Bull driver passed Hamilton before the two had even made turn one on the restart.
Horner revealed that the team decided to pit Verstappen from the race’s lead during the safety car, due to the team’s preference of being on the soft tyre come the race’s final moments.
“This was a huge race with an incredible amount of anticipation and pressure. It was also a tough race strategically. First with the virtual safety car and then of course the full safety car. To pit Max in the lead with 12 laps to go, putting him behind two Mercedes, is a big call, but it was the right one, we would prefer to be on the better tyre.”
After Sergio Perez spun out in the final moments of qualifying yesterday, the Mexican would eventually come home in the same place as he started today’s race in fifth place. Perez failed to make up any places from the get-go and was soon overtaken by George Russell in the opening stages of the race.
After Carlos Sainz’s slow pit stop, both Perez and Sainz became locked in a battle for fifth place and an ambitious overtake from the Mexican saw Perez pushed out wide into the gravel. Perez was able to continue and come the end of the race would be given the fifth-place finish as a result of Sainz’s five-second time penalty.
On Perez’s race, Horner stated the team should have overruled the thirty-two-year-old driver’s preference for the medium tyres during the safety-car period of today’s race.
“Checo was unfortunately jumped at the restart by Carlos and I think in hindsight we should have overruled his preference for medium tyre, but he had a strong race.“
With another win under the team’s belt in 2022, Horner refused to claim that both championships were already wrapped up and insisted that the team would still be taking it one race at a time.
“However, what you see here is only 10% of the Team, it’s what goes on behind the scenes that really makes this possible. The Team is operating at an extremely high level and it’s all the support and effort that you don’t see back in Milton Keynes that makes a victory like this possible. All in all, it was a fantastic team performance, both drivers were in the zone from the moment they arrived at the track.
“We are in a great position and we are happy, although nothing is done until it is done. We operate one race at a time and we don’t allow ourselves to think too far ahead. It’s Monza next week, we are looking forward to it and hopefully can carry this form into that race.”
