Sergio Perez desperately needed a win at the Dutch Grand Prix this past weekend to redeem himself from his recent struggles. Not only has the Mexican failed to match Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen in the last nine races, but he also had a disastrous run in between as he failed to qualify for Q3 for five consecutive Grand Prix. While the 33-year-old seemed to have a far better outing at Zandvoort this past weekend, Red Bull made a decision that resulted in him once again failing to beat Verstappen despite having the lead of the race at one stage.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has now explained in his post-race interview why did they chose to pit Max Verstappen first to perform the undercut over Sergio Perez. Despite favoring his teammate over him, Perez did not seem to have any frustration.
I feel extremely proud to win my home race again, in front of all of you, this makes this day and the victory even more special. 🙌
Thank you so much to everyone for coming to the track and sticking around through the bad weather to celebrate this win with us 🇳🇱👏#DutchGP pic.twitter.com/uYGFmLmMrF
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) August 27, 2023
While speaking to the media (as quoted by planetf1.com) after the race, he simply said, “I think that, on those scenarios, the team just has more information than we do at the time. So it’s something we obviously will review during the [post-race] meeting, and I’m sure there’s a reason behind it“. The result meant that the Dutchman has now opened up a 138-point lead in the championship over the Mexican.
Christian Horner explains why Red Bull sacrificed Sergio Perez
In his post-race interview, Christian Horner said that it was a no-brainer for them to pit Max Verstappen first. The Briton believes that this was the only way Red Bull could have defended their first and second positions as a team.
As quoted by theathletic.com, he said, “We’d have gone from a net 1-2 to a net 1-4. So we pitted Max first with the risk being that he undercut Checo, but we’d end up as a team first and second,” Horner explained.
Since Gasly had made up over eight seconds over Verstappen by pitting a lap earlier, the Dutchman was indeed at the risk of being undercut by the Frenchman, had he stayed out a lap more. While Red Bull preventing Verstappen from the undercut did hurt Sergio Perez’s chances of a win as he lost the lead to his teammate by a few seconds.
Another issue that Red Bull had to deal with was the chaos resulting because of the rain. The strategists of all the teams had to constantly stay on their toes as the changing weather meant that the drivers needed to be on the right tire at the right time.
Horner saved Verstappen’s race at the start
In his post-race interview, Christian Horner also explained how he made the decision to call Max Verstappen early for his first pit stop. The Red Bull team principal stated that he insisted Verstappen’s engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, bring the Dutchman in to change tires because the rain was getting worse.
Similarly, Verstappen also believes that the team had some difficult calls to make. In his post-race press conference, the 25-year-old stated that since the weather radar was changing constantly, the team needed to make the best decisions possible to get the result they wanted. While he believes that his side made a few mistakes, he believes it just made the race more interesting as a result.
