Formula 1 – Sergio Perez has complained about Red Bull’s stability in Barcelona – Team boss Christian Horner’s reaction

Perez was confident he could have won in Barcelona, ​​but Red Bull confirmed after the race the Mexican could not win – even though teammate Verstappen was on a gravel trap trip and was well behind George Russell due to issues with the DRS. related. “They were on two different strategies,” said Helmut Marko of ORF.

Because while Verstappen was sent to three stops by a DRS problem to overtake Russell, Perez only has to stop twice. “It wasn’t a fair fight,” said team boss Christian Horner. “Max had the advantage of big tires and of course the Chico tires wouldn’t have lasted until the end either.”

At the time on lap 49 Verstappen had a tire delta that was sometimes two seconds faster than Pérez, Horner claimed. “Daher hätte es keinen Sinn, sie kämpfen zu lassen”, sagte er und betonte, dass Red Bull generell aber beide Fahrer frei fahren lassen würde: “Natürlich, aber unsere Verantwortung ist es, so beidewie m zu mit Autochuse bring.”

“Checo at that point couldn’t see that he was still spending that long on the mid-tyre. From a team perspective, Max had the tire advantage that there was no point in taking such risks with DRS crashing and temperatures soaring.”, According to Horner. “That was absolutely true.”

Horner is sure: Perez will understand that

Because: “The last thing you want is to risk failure when your cars are likely to win races one to two.” Horner was sure that this would be explained to his pilot in exactly the same way and that he would understand it.

“We will discuss that and he will look at the progress of the race. He will see that he has to do about 30 laps on these tires and in the end we had to move to make sure we covered Russell.”

The team boss can understand that Perez saw things differently during the race: “You can understand that in the heat of the moment. If he doesn’t touch on these kinds of things, he’s not doing his job,” said the Briton.

After the race, Perez also had to realize that he would have had a worse hand even without consistent direction: “It was clear today that three pitstops would have been better. If I had gone in that direction, I would have won the race,” the Mexican said. “But it went well for Max.”

Perez: I was told I would take the place back

However, from his point of view, not everything went smoothly. Because Perez let Verstappen skip at the start of the race when he fell behind after a turn. “I was told I would take the seat back,” the Red Bull driver said.

But when he later faced Russell and Verstappen on new tires and wanted to pass, he had to wait for Verstappen to come to the stopping point. “I felt I could have overtaken and then maybe have better cards with my strategy,” he said. “But we’ll discuss that.”

But team player Perez does not leave the press conference without emphasizing the team spirit: “The team’s result is still good. The season is still young and the momentum in the team is good. We have to clarify some things internally but there is nothing, which I am concerned about. All I can say is that.” The atmosphere and momentum are unprecedented. I’m excited about it.”