Christian Horner breaks down the Verstappen penalty.
General
Christian Horner was quick to speak to the Sky F1 reporters at the top of Raidillon after the conclusion of the FP2 session this afternoon. In an interview where he broke down the performances of both drivers this afternoon as they come back from the summer break, he also touched on Red Bull Racing's decision to take Max Verstappen's engine penalty here in Spa.
Horner started the conversation with the reporters by talking about Max Verstappen's penalty. He claimed that they chose to take it here in Belgium, "I mean you look strategically at the calendar. I think we felt it was particularly tight to get to the end of the year with the engine allocation that we have", in which he continued to break down the calendar. "Zandvoort? you don't want to take it there. Monza is actually harder to overtake than you think. Singapore? You don't want to take it there. Japan is tricky to overtake. You start running out of options". This probably explains why we've seen so many grid penalties this weekend with 5 drivers including Verstappen.
Meanwhile, Red Bull not to have any penalties in Perez, struggled this afternoon with a P10 finish in the second free practice. Horner had this to say about it. "We had an issue with the rear wing with a hydraulic and so that needed to be depressurized and reset. Unfortunately by the time whilst he was in the garage the drizzle started." in turn that meant the "circuit was not in great shape. So I don't think today's time is representative of his potential". This is good news for the Perez side of the Red Bull garage as they will be looking to capitalize on the penalties of Charles Leclerc and Verstappen.