Red Bull Formula 1 boss Christian Horner has explained how lower-than-anticipated tyre degradation contributed to the Belgian Grand Prix becoming a “strange race”.
George Russell managed to execute a one-stop against all expectations to propel to an unpredicted race win until his Mercedes being underweight saw him excluded.
Nevertheless, the Briton’s on-track exploits have still been heralded across a weekend where practice running indicated that the race was guaranteed to be a two-stop.
Russell, who expressed surprise that his rivals didn’t replicate his ambitious race plan, had even claimed earlier in the weekend that a three-stop could be on the radar.
But Russell wasn’t incorrect in his initial assumption as a resurfaced track in some areas had contributed to excessive graining through the opening practice sessions.
Max Verstappen ran behind Russell prior to making his second stop, but Horner has insisted that it was impossible to think that Mercedes’ gamble was going to work.
“I don’t think anybody had a crystal ball that a one-stop was going to be the strategy that worked out,” Horner said.
“We were running just behind George on the same tyre, having pitted on the same lap, and with a set of Mediums we felt actually that’s not a bad option to have.
“The degradation was lower than we thought. I don’t think George set off in that race expecting to do a one-stop.
“But congrats to him and Mercedes for making it work because I don’t think even they thought it was potentially going to work at one point.
“It was a strange race because all the data from Friday pointed towards graining, high deg, the new surface here, and it was actually,
whether it’s due to the temperature or whatever, it was actually the complete inverse where a one-stop won the race.
“I don’t think anybody could have envisaged that, but I thought Max did a good job today, going from 11th to fifth, finishing ahead of his nearest championship rival who started fourth.
“That was only seven seconds from the leader, so in what is now a very, very tight grid, I thought that was the optimum, extending his lead in the Drivers.”
With track position proving essential, Horner has concurred with Verstappen’s view that the Dutchman would’ve been in a strong position to win without his grid drop.
“Mercedes looked out of it on Friday, and then their race pace looked very good today,” he added.
“I think, again, there’s a little bit of… the big unknown is the tyres. Different conditions, different track surface, new asphalt.
“I don’t think anybody’s race plot would have predicted that today going, or simulations would have predicted that today going into the race.
“To start 11th, finish fifth, seven seconds from the leader. We never really got to run in clean air. We were always in dirty air, dirty air, dirty air.
“If we’d have started on the pole, potentially we could have won it. But we’ve got that engine penalty in the bag now, which puts us in a better place for after the break.”
Verstappen made up ground with ease in the nascent stages as he displaced Esteban Ocon, Alex Albon and Fernando Alonso to become attached to the lead group.
But the three-time F1 champion was unable to make up more places on track as turbulence when running in another car’s wake saw passing moves be at a premium.
Asked whether overtaking has become more challenging as this ground effect regulation era has matured, Horner responded: “I think so.
“I think shortening that DRS, actually on the last lap I think we were quite grateful for it, but it made overtaking much harder.
“I think those 75 metres on the run up to Turn 5, you could see there wasn’t a lot of overtaking going on today.”
