F1 Azerbaijan GP: “Didn’t seem comfortable with the setup like Checo,” Christian Horner takes Sergio Perez’s side over Max Verstappen’s after Baku win
Christian Horner has opined on whether he believes Max Verstappen had it in him to win the Azerbaijan GP.
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The Azerbaijan GP proved to be a tumultuous ordeal for the Red Bull squad. Although the team had the best results thanks to Sergio Perez snatching the topmost position in the Main Race at Baku, Max Verstappen‘s luck ran out after the first few laps as soon as the Safety Car came out. The Dutchman had been leading the Grand Prix for a quite some time, and then his engineers called him in for a tyre change at the pits. Verstappen complied, but this was the beginning of his downfall in the long run.
When the safety car was called in quite some time after Max Verstappen had had his pitstop, he found that the cars that were behind him got a free chance to change their tyres without losing the standards 20 seconds that it usually takes for stopping at the pits. Now, under the safety car, it takes only 10s at an average for a tyre change at the pits. This whopping 10 second difference proved to be too much for Max to make up for as Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez surpassed him. While Max could take on Charles easily, Perez proved to be unbeatable against his teammate.
Now, the question boils down to whether the flawed pitstop timing cost Max Verstappen his first spot at the podium, or if it was Max’s deficits in driving that resulted into him losing out on the race win. While Max blamed the safety car time and again for his unlucky race finish, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner had very different opinions as opposed to the young Dutchman about what led to Verstappen getting beaten by Perez in Baku.
Christian Horner feels that Baku was not Max Verstappen’s race to win
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix gave the fans a lot of entertainment after three weeks with no racing. But it proved to be quite unfortunate for Max Verstappen as the Dutchman fell behind his teammate Sergio Perez despite leading the pack for a considerable number of laps. When Christian Horner was asked if he thought Max would have won the race in Baku, he said, “I don’t think so. He was leading the GP then the incident [safety car deployment] happened. He didn’t seem quite comfortable with the set-up of the car like Checo did.“
Now, Max is still at the front of the group in the F1 Championship standings, but things can get risky for the two-time World Champion because Sergio Perez is second, with a difference of only 6 points. The Red Bull spokespersons have always maintained that their racers are free to contest with each other provided it is a healthy competition. Thus, it remains to be seen if Max overcomes the Checo challenge, or if he succumbs to it.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)