Red Bull team chief Christian Horner hailed Max Verstappen as a team player after the German Grand Prix where he saw his drivers finish second and third in the race.
Verstappen made an excellent start from fourth on the grid to tuck into second as the pack headed out of Turn 1. With Mercedes the target the energy drinks team split their driver’s strategies.
Just before the final pit stops, Verstappen – known for his robust defensive tactics – allowed Ricciardo through without holding him up and thus gifted the Australian second place. The gesture impressed Horner on the pit wall.
“Max has demonstrated beyond any doubt that he is a team player,” the Red Bull team boss bsaid. “The way the two drivers operated, they both had great starts, Max on the outside; Daniel gave him just enough room to work with, which is what I asked for in the briefing [on Sunday morning], and then they ran different strategies.”
“We fitted the super-soft, the new tyre, on to Max at the first stop to try cover Rosberg. And took a different route with Daniel fitting the soft tyre. And then after Rosberg had picked up his penalty, the objective was very much to insure that we got both the drivers ahead.”
“Whilst Daniel was on the faster tyre and closing very quickly on Max, we asked that he release him quickly rather than lose time fighting each other to insure that both of them were able to get ahead of Rosberg with his five-second penalty.”
“Max immediately did that efficiently, and [the double podium] is a result of great team work between the whole team including the two race drivers.”
The energy drinks outfit were aided by a penalty meted out to Nico Rosberg for a controversial block on Verstappen during their battle, Rosberg had made a similar move on teammate Hamilton in Austria.
Horner said of the incident, “I think you can argue it’s a racing incident but if he’d locked up all four wheels there would have been a puff of tyre smoke – maybe then he would have got away with it. The problem was it looked like he stopped and then kept going, as if he was off to Cologne.”
“That’s probably what caught the attention of the stewards but that’s down to them, not us,” added Horner.
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