Red Bull team boss Christian Horner must be applauded for allowing his drivers to race one another during the Malaysian Grand Prix, but he admits that race winner Daniel Ricciardo got lucky when it mattered.
Horner said that Ricciardo benefitted from the second Virtual Safety Car (VSC) period, when prior to that teammate Max Verstappen filled his mirrors on fresher tyres.
The pair slugged it out, side-by-side, shortly before the VSC was deployed to deal with Lewis Hamilton’s stricken Mercedes. This provided Ricciardo the opportunity to pit for fresh rubber – he emerged in the lead where he stayed until the end, without being troubled by Verstappen again.
Horner reflected, “Our philosophy was to take more risk with the tail car. So therefore it made more sense to bring Max in at that point. He didn’t lose any positions.”
“And it was just rolling the dice. Halfway through the race, it looked like that strategy was working out for him as the more competitive.”
“What really saved Daniel’s race was the second VSC, which then it made total sense to pit both drivers, not take any risk, to put them on to the soft tire to the end of the race.”
During the VSC Verstappen followed Ricciardo into the pits, also for fresher rubber. Asked why at this point the team did not opt to leave Verstappen out on track..
Horner explained, “It would have been marginal to the end of the race with the tires. So we thought we will double stop, we have the time to be able to do that, and then it was a straight race between the two of them. We were looking for the tire to go an awful long way.”
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