01/05/2023
NEWS STORY
Christian Horner has explained the decision to stop Max Verstappen early, a decision the Dutchman believes cost him the win in Baku.
Having taken the lead from Charles Leclerc on Lap 4 of the race, the two-time world champion was now under pressure from his Red Bull teammate when Nyck de Vries stopped at Turn 6 after damaging his suspension when he clouted the barrier at the previous corner.
The Dutchman was ordered to pit, rejoining the race in third, but then came the decision to deploy the Safety Car, thereby giving Perez, Leclerc and others a 'free' stop.
Once the race resumed, the Dutchman was soon able to overhaul the Ferrari, but unable to do anything about his Mexican teammate and consequently finished second.
Verstappen blames his team for failing to read the de Vries situation correctly and has demanded a review.
"I saw that there was a car stopped, I thought he maybe just locked up," he said of the initial incident. However, in terms of how the situation developed, he said: "You could see there was one wheel damaged and it looked like he was not going to drive back to the pits, even if he would've reversed.
"You cannot look into the detail of whether the wheel is connected to the car properly," he continued. "In hindsight, I mean, I can't see that, but it's something to review.
"Of course the team has a bit more overview to that," he admitted. "I also don't know when the exact call came to pit, so it's a bit difficult to say at the moment.
"But like I said we'll look into that if there was anything we could have done different. It's something to look at, because of course that then did hurt my race after that."
"Usually, if you see a car in the barriers here it's a safety car, but there was no sign of it initially," Christian Horner told Sky Sports. "It was only subsequently on the replays that you were able to see his track rod was broken.
"With hindsight you'd have left him out there another lap," he said of Verstappen's stop. "At the time from what we could see, we decided to pit Max because he was starting to struggle a little bit with the rear tyres on his car, and Checo was obviously right up behind him.
"So we decided, from a strategy point of view, it was the optimum time to take the stop. And with de Vries, the glimpse that we got, all four wheels were on the car, he hadn't hit the barrier. And the engine was running. It looked like he would select reverse and carry on. We never expected that to go to a safety car.
"Obviously with 20/20 vision, we'd have just done one more lap and gone from there. You just don't know at that point whether Charles is going to pit and then he suddenly jumps both of them.
"The problem was we didn't have the visibility of de Vries," he insisted, "it was a quick shot of him and just a black set of lines, it looked like he'd out-braked himself, hadn't hit the barrier. 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.
"So yeah, it was only subsequently I think on the replays that you were able to see a track rod was broken."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Baku here.