Horner: 'An extra lap at Imola was dangerous, but not because of Norris'

The Grand Prix weekend in Imola had a difficult start for the Red Bull Racing team. On Friday, the Austrian team struggled with several problems. During qualifying, the team managed to completely turn this around and run away with pole position after all. The Imola Grand Prix had an exciting finale with a fast approaching Lando Norris.

Horner sees a missed opportunity in Imola

Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner admitted after the Grand Prix to several media outlets, including GPblog, that an extra lap would have been a difficult story for his team. "We’d have been vulnerable on fuel. So it worked out. I think with hindsight, we would have maybe been better running hard on Friday. We had opted to take two new hard tyres into the race and maybe it would have been better to have got the information on the tyre. But when you look at the turnaround that we had from Friday into Saturday to get the pole and then to get the victory again today, it's been a phenomenal performance and turnaround by the team, but also Max has been incredible this weekend. And again, he had to work very hard for both the pole position and the victory."

The British team boss expressed surprise at the unexpected battle that took place between Verstappen and Norris at the end of the race. "I think for the first 40 laps, we were in a really good window and able to manage the gap. And after he came out, the gap dropped to 6 seconds, but he was able to hold it there and at that point it looked more like our eyes were on Leclerc. Was he going to make the step and was he going to pose a challenge? Lando, whatever window they managed to get their tyre into, suddenly their car came alive. And it just shows how sensitive these tyres are to the different conditions," Horner said.