Christian Horner claims Max Verstappen and Red Bull had McLaren ‘under control’ before final pitstop

Christian Horner believed Max Verstappen would've won the Austrian GP if the last pitstop had worked as intended.

Christian Horner claims Max Verstappen and Red Bull had McLaren ‘under control’ before final pitstop

Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Christian Horner (Via: Imago)

Max Verstappen and Lando Norris’s intense battle at the Austrian GP resulted in a collision. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said they didn’t win the race, yet they managed to perform exceptionally well all over the weekend.

Christian Horner was pleased with how Red Bull performed over the course of the weekend, despite the incident with McLaren. He noted that Max Verstappen won the sprint race without any issues. The Dutchman built up an eight-second lead in the main race before encountering a problem during a pit stop. Despite this setback, Horner believed that they had the race and managed to keep the McLaren under their control.

[Max] won the sprint race convincingly and had an eight-second lead before we had the pit stop problem. So I think we had [McLaren] under control this weekend.
Christian Horner said, as reported by motorsporttotal.com
YouTube video

Horner clarified that Red Bull had high expectations of winning the race at Spielberg. He mentioned that under normal conditions, they were confident they would have achieved victory. However, the final part of the race, particularly the last stint which began with the problematic pit stop and the incident with McLaren disrupted their plans. This issue allowed Lando Norris to challenge Max Verstappen. The 50-year-old believed, if the pitstop issue wouldn’t have occurred, Verstappen would have likely maintained a stronger lead and prevented Norris from closing into him.

FS Video
We expected to win and under normal circumstances we probably would have done that." Only the last stint, which started with the botched pit stop, prevented that. Otherwise Norris would probably not have been in a position to attack Verstappen.
Christian Horner added

Fernando Alonso felt guilty for colliding with Zhou Guanyu.

Apart from the incident between Red Bull and McLaren, there was another incident at turn 3 between Fernando Alonso and Zhou Guanyu. Alonso crashed into Guanyu’s car from the back and accepted that he made a mistake and received a penalty for that. He explained, he did not anticipate locking the tires, when they did it seemed like the car was accelerating instead of slowing down. The Spaniard mentioned that it occurred because when tires lock up, they stop rolling smoothly and loose traction on the track. This affected Alonso’s car’s performance

I made a mistake. Of course I didn't expect that I would lock the tires. And when you lock, it seems as if you are accelerating because the car no longer decelerates.
Fernando Alonso stated
Zhou Guanyu and Fernando Alonso
Zhou Guanyu and Fernando Alonso (IMAGES VIA IMAGO)

The car in front of Alonso was Zhou Guanyu’s car who also braked at the same time or little early. Despite this, The Spaniard acknowledged, that it was his mistake, he’s the one to blame for bumping into Guanyu. He mentioned he couldn’t react at that moment, However, even if he had reacted differently, it’s unlikely he would have scored points on Sunday’s race.

My mistake. I couldn't do anything. But it probably wouldn't have been enough for points yesterday anyway.
Fernando Alonso added

Certainly, Fernando Alonso takes the blame respectfully for crashing into Guanyu as it was not his intention to do so. The Austrian GP was yet another disappointing race for Aston Martin where they did not score any points. Fans hope they perform better in the upcoming races.

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