F1 News
'Bringing in Verstappen was the right choice for Red Bull Racing'
The British Grand Prix ended with high-drama, due to several flat tyres. Max Verstappen could have won the race if he didn't make a second pit stop, but Gary Anderson said it was the way to go.
It's easy to talk afterwards. 'Hindsight is a wonderful thing' was a phrase commonly used after Verstappen could have won the British Grand Prix if he hadn't have pitted. In the penultimate lap, Valtteri Bottas had to deal with a flat tyre, after which the Dutchman dived into the pit lane for set of soft tyres. Moments later, Lewis Hamilton also got a flat tyre. Could Verstappen have won the race if he had not made a second pit stop?
According to Gary Anderson, the Red Bull Racing team made no mistake during the race. "It’s easy to criticise Red Bull for losing British Grand Prix victory by bringing Max Verstappen in for a pitstop, but with the information the team had on hand it was the right call," explains the former car designer on TheRace. com.
The flat tyre circuit
"In the heat of the moment, the Red Bull pit wall didn’t know if it was just a puncture or a structural failure for Bottas and probably felt that the tyres on Verstappen’s car were past their sell-by date. Silverstone in the past has been a tyre killer with so many fast corners, and with the loads, these cars are producing on this track nothing has changed – if anything it’s harder on the tyres than ever," Anderson adds.
The Briton says he would have made the same decision if he were on the pit wall at Red Bull Racing. “You do need to react when something else happens outside of your own team. It’s easy to be blinkered and just pay attention to yourself but at that time there were 16 other cars out there and each one can add to your data bank. Two laps from the end of the race, Hamilton was pretty happy with his tyres – then look what happened," Anderson concludes.