Red Bull team principal Christian Horner asserts that Max Verstappen will not forget the incident on the opening lap that damaged the Dutchman’s Sprint race in Azerbaijan.
Russell and Verstappen went side-by-side for three successive corners on the first lap as the pair battled hard for third position.
The Mercedes driver would come out ahead, but contact between the two left a substantial hole in Verstappen’s sidepod, which Horner estimated to be worth “three-quarters of a second” per lap.
While he would swiftly regain the place, Verstappen continued to be incensed after the race and was seen handing Russell a dressing down in parc ferme.
Horner says he understands Verstappen’s frustrations and contends that the reigning World Champion will not forget the clash.
“Turn 1, I can live with… Turn 2 is hard racing between hard racers. George runs him out wide [at Turn 3],” he said via Sky Sports.
“He was understandably annoyed with that and voiced his opinion to George. It was probably good that he [George] left his crash helmet. You can understand that.
“He is a competitive driver, and when you get damage to your car, you will be disappointed.
“He is like an elephant. He won’t forget. He [Max] did a good job at the restart overtaking George then the tyres started to overheat.
“Then the damage he had.. the balance shifted. We could hear from Milton Keynes about how the balance shifted and was a big handicap.”
Sergio Perez in the sister car managed to pass Charles Leclerc for the lead on the eighth lap and comfortably went on to win the first Sprint event of the 2023 season.
The Mexican has trimmed Verstappen’s lead in the Drivers’ standings to 13 points, and Horner has credited Perez for producing a professional outing on the streets of Baku.
“It was a brilliant race from Checo,” the Red Bull chief said. “He was sensible one the first lap and wanted to be there in the first DRS zone because he wanted to get the job done quickly, so then he could start managing the tyres.
“He made that happen and had a blinding middle sector to make that happen. Then he used the short DRS and made the pass into Turn 1.
“He then was able to eke out a gap, whilst Charles was still trying to hang in the DRS. Once he broke it, he was able to manage the race comfortably.”
While Leclerc was able to break out into an early lead, the intervention of the Safety Car reduced the Ferrari man’s advantage and enabled Perez the platform to launch an overtake shortly after.
Although Leclerc managed to stay within one second of Perez to activate DRS on his own car, Red Bull’s superior tyre management allowed the Mexican to eventually free himself of the Ferrari.
Perez was 5s clear of second-place Leclerc by the time the chequered flag was shown at the end of 17 laps, leaving Horner confident that Red Bull can overhaul Ferrari again in tomorrow’s longer distance race.
“That [the Sprint] was like a long run in P2, we get to see our competitors’ degradation on that tyre,” he added. “The Ferrari’s were struggling more on the second half of the stint. We have a lot of information from that session that we can apply to our strategy for tomorrow.
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