Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has explained that Max Verstappen was given pit stop priority over Sergio Perez in the Dutch Grand Prix over fears of losing its 1-2 status in the race.
Perez, who started seventh, propelled into a comfortable lead when he took advantage of stopping at the end of Lap 1 to pit for Intermediate tyres when rain hit the track.
Horner reveals that it was Perez’s call to make the early switch, admitting that the team played it conservatively with Verstappen to maintain track position.
“As the first car in the train, with the leader, it’s always very hard to make that call when it’s right on the edge,” Horner explained.
“It was Sergio’s call that he wanted to pit and that paid dividends for him because he was the first one, certainly of the front-leading cars, to jump onto the inter.”
Having swiftly clawed his back to second, the Dutchman instantly reduced the margin to his team-mate by 4.1s inside one lap.
Verstappen eroded Perez’s advantage down to just 3s by the time the track had dried sufficiently to switch back to slicks.
“The way he cut through the traffic was quite sensational,” Horner continued.
“Checo then had the target to pull a gap on the cars behind him, but Max’s pace as he came through the field was such that I think at one point he took seven seconds out of him in three laps, and was coming very fast.”
Despite being the second Red Bull on the road at that stage, Verstappen was serviced first, enabling him to comfortably emerge in the lead once Perez pitted the following lap.
However, Horner has defended the decision to relinquish Perez of the lead, stating Red Bull was concerned about drivers behind already on slicks undercutting Verstappen.
“[Fernando] Alonso and, I think, [Pierre] Gasly behind him had pulled the trigger and pitted,” he explained. “And you could see from [Alex] Albon suddenly the circuit was coming alive for the slicks.
“Had we pitted Checo first, they would have both undercut Max, so we’d have gone from a net one-two to a net one-four. So we pitted Max first with the risk being that he’d undercut Checo but we’d end up as a team as first and second. So it was a no-brainer.”
After the race, Perez highlighted that he would need to review the strategy with the team. He would eventually classify fourth after picking up a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
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