Tag: christian horner

Horner defends Verstappen pit stop timing despite lost lead

Christian Horner has defended pitting Max Verstappen from the lead just second before a safety car neutralized the race and promoted teammate Sergio Perez into first place and an eventual victory. Verstappen had been leading the race on lap 10 when …

Christian Horner has defended pitting Max Verstappen from the lead just second before a safety car neutralized the race and promoted teammate Sergio Perez into first place and an eventual victory.

Verstappen had been leading the race on lap 10 when Nyck de Vries struck the apex barrier at Turn 5 and broke his front-left suspension, forcing him to park his car halfway onto the Turn 6 run-off area.

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Red Bull Racing called Verstappen into the pits that same lap – he was exiting Turn 14 at the time of the crash, and as he dived into the pit entry, the incident was still covered by localized yellow flags.

Neither Perez, who was a close second at the time, not the more distant Charles Leclerc followed him into pit lane, and barely seconds after he rejoined the track, race control triggered a safety car to collect De Vries’s stranded AlphaTauri.

Perez and Leclerc took advantage of the reduced pace to make their stops at the end of lap 11, with both jumping erstwhile leader Verstappen.

“The problem was we didn’t have the visibility of De Vries; it was a quick shot of him and just a black set of lines,” Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner said. “It looked like he’d outbraked himself.

“All four wheels were on the car, he hadn’t hit the barrier and the engine was running.

“It looked like he’d select reverse and carry on. We never expected that to go to a safety car.

“Usually if you see a car in the barrier, it’s a safety car, but there was no sign of it having hit the barrier. It was only subsequently I think on the replays that you were able to see a track rod was broken.

“Obviously with 20/20 vision we’d have just done one more lap and gone from there.”

Horner said Verstappen was roughly in his ideal stop window anyway, particularly given the title leader was dealing with worse degradation than expected on the medium tire.

“We decided to pit Max because he was starting to struggle a little bit with the rears on his car, and Checo was obviously right up behind him,” he said. “So we decided from a strategy point of view it was the optimum time to take the stop.

“It was one of those things that sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t.”

Despite the turn good fortune, Pérez appeared to have the pace to win the race on merit, having closed to within DRS range of Verstappen before the safety car intervened and looking untroubled keeping his teammate at bay in the 38 laps after the resumption.

Horner was keen to emphasise that the Mexican, now just six points behind Verstappen in the title standings, had earnt the victory.

“Checo is definitely living up to his nickname of king of the streets,” he said. “He got a little bit lucky with the timing of the safety car, but having got the lead, he built close to a four-second lead at one point and controlled the race.

“He then had to get on and deliver. You’ve got Max Verstappen behind you, he’s not taking it easy.

“He used his opportunity and converted it into a great win.

“They were pushing each other hard … but we let them push all the way through. That was always the plan going into the race.

“And all credit to Checo, drove a great race today.”

Red flag was right, despite threat to Red Bull victory says Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says it was right to red flag the Australian Grand Prix late on due to safety reasons, even if it threatened Max Verstappen’s victory. Verstappen was comfortably leading the race in Melbourne when Kevin …

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says it was right to red flag the Australian Grand Prix late on due to safety reasons, even if it threatened Max Verstappen’s victory.

Verstappen was comfortably leading the race in Melbourne when Kevin Magnussen hit the wall at Turn 2 and left debris on the circuit. While the safety car was initially deployed, a red flag was used to ensure the clear-up could take place thoroughly before restarting the race, and although Horner admits it was annoying from Red Bull’s point of view he believes it was the right decision.

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“It was always going to be hugely frustrating when you get a red flag and a restart with three laps to go,” Horner said. “When you’re the leader, you can only lose from that point.

“It was just a question of just go out there and do the best start we could. We’d had two pretty average starts in the previous two attempts. But the third one, he nailed, and all chaos ensued behind him, which thankfully we weren’t part of. And then obviously the red flag came out, and the race was never going to get restarted after that. A few cars sustaining quite a bit of damage at the end there.

“Safety reasons are why the red flags should always be thrown. There was a lot of debris on the track. When you look at it, it was the right thing to red flag it. The problem was there were only two laps to the end of the race. You’re always going to get winners and losers in that.”

And Horner says the way incidents late in races are handled has been under constant discussion following both Abu Dhabi in 2021 and Monza last year, with the target of a green flag finish taking priority.

“You can understand the rationale behind wanting to get finished under racing conditions rather than cruising behind the safety car for three laps. They might have been able to clear the circuit and get it going, I don’t know. Like all these things, there’s always something to learn.

“I mean it’s something that has been discussed. There has always been a preference to finish under racing conditions, so if by stopping a race enabled them to tidy up the circuit, rather than just cruise out the remaining laps behind the safety car, then it’s the right thing to do.

“The problem is that when you’re the lead car, and you’ve been controlling a 10-second lead all afternoon, suddenly it’s a massive variable that becomes a bit of a lottery.”

Strong start will help negate cost cap penalty – Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says it was crucial for his team not to have a major issue with its car to resolve this year due to the cost cap penalty that limits its development time. The FIA found Red Bull to be in minor overspend …

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says it was crucial for his team not to have a major issue with its car to resolve this year due to the cost cap penalty that limits its development time.

The FIA found Red Bull to be in minor overspend breach of the cost cap last year and imposed a reduction in windtunnel and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) time that leaves Horner’s team with less opportunity to work on the aerodynamic aspects of its car compared to its rivals. After starting the year with a comfortable one-two in Bahrain, Horner says the penalty’s impact will be felt over a long period but that it has a chance of limiting it by ensuring it has a strong baseline.

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“I think it’s something you have to view over a twelve-month period because it’s not just this years car its next year’s car,” Horner said. “I think the really positive thing for us is that we’re not dealing with a fundamental issue that soaked up that resource and time so it was vital for us to be able to cope with that penalty, to have a solid starting point and I think that is what the team have done.

“I think it just focuses everyone’s mind that, it drives efficiency and what we lost in wind tunnel time, we gained in motivation.”

Max Verstappen was untroubled as he won in Bahrain with Sergio Perez a comfortable second, but Horner warns the overall leave of Red Bull’s advantage won’t be known until more tracks have been used.

“I think for the first race of the year to bring them home as we did with the handicap of the wind tunnel time and everything else I think the team have done an amazing job to have this as a starting point. Of course we’ve now got to be efficient in our development moving forward and every circuit will have its different challenges but a great start for the team.

“You never know (the pecking order) and I think the problem is that we’ve got one data set which is at this track so we’re not taking anything for granted so let’s see Jeddah and Melbourne after that. After we’ve got two or three circuits under our belt we’ll have a much better picture of strengths and weaknesses of our car and our opposition so it’s certainly a very healthy start and a very well-executed race to bring in those points.”

Christian Horner destaca la conducción de Checo Pérez

La Fórmula 1 se reiniciará el 28 de agosto con el GP de Bélgica donde se espera mucho mejor desempeño del mexicano

Luego de que Checo Pérez finalizara en quinta posición el GP de Hungría, las críticas se lanzaron sobre el mexicano pues partió solo un puesto detrás de su compañero Max Verstappen en la P11 y logró ganar la carrera.

Sin embargo el director de la escudería Christian Horner destacó el trabajo del mexicano luego de un fin de semana complicado para el monoplaza de Red Bull Racing asegurando que remontó muchas posiciones y que de no haber aparecido el Virtual Safety Car se hubiera subido al podio.

“Hay que mirar lo que hizo Checo este día. Sin ese Virtual Safety Car sobre el final estoy convencido de que se subía al podio porque iba rodando un segundo más rápido que (George) Russell y (Carlos) Sainz. El tipo es un gran piloto, es nato, le encanta estar rueda a rueda con todos. Estoy convencido de que Checo se recuperará tras el verano”, dijo Horner en entrevista para Sky Sports.

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Tal parece que el parón de verano le vendrá bien a Checo Pérez que pese a subirse a varios podios esta temporada en las últimas carreras se quedó corto y en algunas incluso tuvo que abandonar.

La Fórmula 1 se reiniciará el 28 de agosto con el GP de Bélgica donde se espera mucho mejor desempeño del mexicano que tiene el apoyo de su director para la misión de lograr el campeonato de constructores.

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Christian Horner llena de elogios a Checo Pérez tras podio en Australia

Checo Pérez tuvo que sobreponerse a la entrada del Saftey Car y rebasar a los dos Mercedes para tomar el segundo puesto

Luego del primer podio del mexicano Sergio Pérez en la temporada 2022 de la Fórmula 1, muchos aficionados ya se preguntan si Checo debería ser el piloto número 1 de la escudería pues hasta el momento presenta mejores resultados que el campeón Max Verstappen.

Las fallas en el motor Honda del Red Bull han sido la constante en este inicio de temporada incierto para los de Austria, pero Checo Pérez se las ha arreglado para mantenerse en las carreras y pelear por los podios de mejor manera que su compañero neerlandés.

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Pero fue el propio director de la escudería Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner quien llenó de elogios a Checo que supo sobreponerse a un Safety Car inoportuno para mantener el segundo puesto peleando fuerte con los Mercedes.

“Le doy todo el crédito a Checo. Perdió nuevamente debido al SC y tuvo mala suerte. Luego hizo las recuperaciones desde atrás, con un gran adelantamiento a Lewis por el exterior y luego tuvo que pasar a George nuevamente”. dijo Horner.

Tal como le sucedió en Arabia Saudita, Checo Pérez tuvo que sobreponerse a la entrada del Saftey Car y rebasar a los dos Mercedes para tomar el segundo puesto, demostrando que el mexicano está por encima de los campeones vigentes del campeonato de constructores.

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Red Bull se disculpó con Checo Pérez por arruinarle el podio, pero los memes no

Christian Horner, jefe del equipo de Red Bull se disculpó con Sergio Pérez por la parada lenta de pits que le arruinó el podio

La mesa estaba puesta en el Gran Premio de Estiria para que Red Bull repitiera podio, la lucha con Mercedes es feroz y los alemanes ya habían conseguido el 2-3 en la parrilla de salida para pelearle a Max Verstappen toda la carrera, sin embargo la sanción a Bottas complicó los planes.

Los tres puestos con los que fue sancionado Bottas, lo mandaron a la quinta posición, adelantado a Checo Pérez al cuarto sitio, sabedores que el McLaren de Lando Norris no iba a soportar la presión del Red Bull y el Mercedes detrás toda la carrera.

Checo ya había hecho lo propio adelantando a Norris adueñándose del tercer sitio, sin embargo en un mal trabajo de los pits en la primera parada del mexicano retrasó todo y permitió que Bottas aventajara a Pérez para nunca más soltar la posición.

A medio segundo se quedó el mexicano de alcanzar el podio en Austria, el propio Christian Horner, jefe del equipo de Red Bull se disculpó con Sergio por la parada lenta de pits que le arruinó el podio, pero destacó la conducción del mexicano.

“Perdón por ese pit stop, por el resto buen trabajo”, dijo Christian Horner por radio a Checo Pérez.

Los memes no perdonan a Red Bull

Como ya es una costumbre, más se tardaron los de Red Bull en ese pit stop fallido que los memes en aparecer, hubo quien pidió que el equipo de pits de Pérez incluyera a un personaje de  la película Cars.

https://www.facebook.com/GarraMexico/posts/269608811627364

https://www.facebook.com/lanacionmotor/posts/372353854315741

https://www.facebook.com/checoperezredbull11/posts/283333470245883

Foto portada ESPECIAL

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