Verstappen and Horner disagree: 'Strategy should have been different'

It is not the first and will certainly not be the last time that Max Verstappen speaks his mind honestly. After the race in Bahrain he had the following criticism for Red Bull's strategists: "We were acting too conservatively. At the first stop we should have tried an undercut. We had nothing to lose. I would have finished second either way. That shows that I could still afford a third pit stop in the end."

Christian Horner hasn't been entirely receptive of his star driver's criticism. He analyses the race to Auto, Motor, und Sport as follows: "We lost to Mercedes because they were a bit faster than us and because they managed better with the tyres," and not because they chose the wrong strategy.

Undercut impossible

If he had let Verstappen come in earlier for an undercut "we would have sent him into traffic," Horner argues. “Because of the long safety car phase at the beginning, the field was not yet sufficiently spread." Mercedes were also anticipating an undercut from Verstappen, and had invested a lot of effort into saving tyres as the key to victory.