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Horner about Baku 2018: "Both drivers looked at me like I was an angry teacher"

31 May 2020 at 15:32
  • GPblog.com

Within Red Bull Racing there has often been a clear division between first and second driver. Like Sebastian Vettel in his period with the team and now Max Verstappen, with Alex Albon as second driver. However, sometimes things went wrong between teammates, such as in Turkey in 2010 or Azerbaijan in 2018. In F1 Unscripted team boss Christian Horner talks to David Coulthard about the moments when there was a crash between teammates.

Horner says he doesn't get angry easily, but that the crash between Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo did draw the blood under his fingernails. "I remember very well that I was very angry with both drivers at the debrief. I remember Adrian (Newey) being there as well and he looked particularly frightened. Both drivers really looked at me then as if I was some sort of angry teacher".

Lost a lot of points

Horner realized at that time that many valuable points for the World Championship had been lost. "That anger was mainly because we lost a lot of points for the team". Ricciardo indicated after leaving Red Bull that the crash during that race was one of the reasons he left the team.

Horner also looked back on the previous incidents in the history of Red Bull, such as the several times that things went wrong between Vettel and Mark Webber. "What you often see between drivers is that the tension only builds up, until things go wrong at some point. Luckily that doesn't happen that often", Horner concludes.