Red Bull boss Christian Horner questioned the tyre change calls from some teams at the Formula 1 British Grand Prix, claiming that they made “no sense”.
The Milton Keynes-based squad were forced to perform a damage limitation job at Silverstone, with Max Verstappen finishing fifth after starting the race on pole position.
Verstappen faced a race with constantly changing weather conditions that played havoc with the RB21, clad in a skinny rear wing that helped secure top spot on the grid.
After being baulked by Oscar Piastri upon the Safety Car restart, Verstappen also suffered an uncharacteristic spin which sent him further down the order to 10th.
But typical Verstappen driving and a sensible tyre strategy enabled him to work his way back up to fifth, after a late dice with former team-mate Pierre Gasly’s Alpine.
Red Bull opted not to send either car into the pits at the end of the formation lap as the track dried, but several, including Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and George Russell’s Mercedes, did.
Following the race, Horner spoke of his bafflement as to why they decided to do this, contradicting Russell’s assertion that pitting at the start was “not a stupid decision”.
“Yeah, I think it was important not to go too early,” he told media including Motorsport Week. “And then it was a question of which tyre you put on.
“The Hard tyre last year was the tyre for the last stint. I think as a team we called the pit stops at the right time today.
“I thought going on to the slicks was very risky at the start of the race. The cars that pulled in at the beginning, that seemed to make no sense.”
Red Bull ‘timed rain crossover optimally’
Whilst the result was not the one Red Bull wanted, it was an admirable one under the circumstances, given Verstappen was contending with a dry race set-up on the car.
Horner was full of praise for the Red Bull personnel who managed to save the result from being a very poor one.
From the team’s position, it was, as Horner said, “clear that the rain was coming,” adding: “All the info that we had coming to the pit wall was that the rain was 10 minutes away, eight minutes away. And it was a matter of making sure you survived to that rain.
“There would then be a new set of Inters, so you didn’t want to make two pit stops.
“And then going from the Inter to the slick, it seemed to take an age for the track to actually dry up. And as you say, getting that crossover, I think we timed it optimally to get him onto the Medium tyre for the end of the race.:
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