Red Bull turned down Verstappen's engine following Ricciardo's retirement

Christian Horner has revealed his Red Bull team turned down Max Verstappen's engine following Daniel Ricciardo's failure. It remains unclear as to what happened to the Australian's car, but in fear that it might end the dutchman's race, Horner edged on the side of precaution.

Verstappen eventually went on to win the Grand Prix, but who knows what could have happened? The Dutchman himself faced reliability issues in practice on Friday as he lost all power.

"We were quite concerned that there might be a similar problem with Max, so we turned his engine down to try and reduce temperatures," Horner told Motorsport.

"Then [we] only turned it up over the last five laps just to make sure the Ferrari's weren't going to get within DRS range."

Many Dutch fans all dressed in orange made the journey across to Austria and produced plenty of noise for their young driver. Horner confirmed he felt nervous going into the final stages of the race to ensure he didn't upset the fans and maintain first place.

"Well, the old lederhosen started to overheat, but Max seemed pretty much in control, bar reliability. That was perhaps the most apprehension that I certainly had in the last 25% of the race," added Horner.

Both Mercedes drivers are now running ahead of Valtteri Bottas who retired earlier in the race.