Red Bull Content Pool

F1 News

Horner on difference between Verstappen and Norris at Zandvoort

Horner's admits Red Bull 'gambled' with strategy in Dutch GP defeat

26 August at 18:30
5
  • Jeroen Immink

After the start of the Dutch Grand Prix at the Zandvoort circuit, Max Verstappen gave the Orange Army hope by immediately catching Lando Norris at the start. But those hopes soon faded after Norris easily overtook the Dutchman in turn for the lead. After Norris overwhelmingly - by a whopping 22 seconds - managed to win the race, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner came out with an explanation as to why this may be.

Red Bull gambled with tyre wear

After the race in Holland, Horner indicated that Red Bull had taken a small gamble in terms of strategy with Verstappen. "First of all, they (McLaren) were very fast today, so all credit to them in that respect. We gambled a bit because we thought the tyre wear would be quite high. And so we increased the downforce quite a lot, up to the maximum downforce," Horner revealed after the race.

At the beginning, Verstappen seemed to control the race, keeping Norris about 1.5 seconds away. But as the race progressed, the Briton got closer and managed to overtake Verstappen in the DRS zone. "Max made a great start. He was clearly ahead in the first corner and he was able to break the DRS. But pretty soon you could see that Lando was very comfortable behind him. And then, of course, he (Norris) was able to pass him (Verstappen) quite easily because of our shortcoming on the straight and the speed he had. And then, to be honest, his pace after that, he just controlled the race," Horner said.

Horner: 'Max knew he couldn't beat Norris'

Already after qualifying, Verstappen and Red Bull assumed that Norris would be too strong in the race. "He knew he couldn't beat Lando today. He couldn't beat him. The most important thing that we discussed before the race, if you can't beat him, make sure that we beat the rest of the field. And I think at one point, we were concerned about Piastri coming out very quickly, passing Russell and then getting onto the back of Leclerc. But then he seemed to run out of pace." Horner added. Red Bull's team boss will be hoping his time will be more competitive in Monza this weekend.