Christian Horner We acted, almost like in Le Mans

After winning the double in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Christian Horner, the head of Red Bull Racing, even expressed regret over Ferrari’s double retirement as it robbed the race of intrigue†

Q: Would you like the Ferrari cars to make it to the finish of the race in Baku to really test if you could beat them on the track?
Christian Horner: Yes, it would be very interesting to see how things could turn out, as Charles Leclerc made a very early pit stop when there was a safety car on track, and he had to drive a very long stretch.

But we decided to stay on track and our drivers got new tires later on, which gave them a certain advantage, and on top of that it seems that our cars were capable of a high pace. I think we were in excellent shape, but we didn’t see a fight with Ferrari.

They were unlucky, especially Charles, but for us the day was very successful and our riders coped with the task very well. It seems that Max Verstappen’s car showed less degradation of rubber than his partner, but Max and Sergio behaved very correctly towards each other.

They behaved exactly as we asked them before the race: if you are going to fight, leave each other a place on the track. After Ferrari’s retirement, given our pace advantage over Mercedes, the only task was to finish the race calmly and earn maximum points.

Q: Sergio has shown excellent speed recently, but closer to the finish he clearly slowed down. Do you think this is because he attacked too aggressively in the early part of the race?
Christian Horner: In qualifying he just did wonders, but in the race he had a great start and quickly created a lead over the pack. But his RB18’s rear tires started granulating earlier than the competition’s. Perhaps his engineers focused more on qualifying than on the race when setting up the car.

It seems that the rubber on Max’s car was less prone to degradation, and this factor also had an influence.

Q: If you’re fighting another team, it’s probably not a bad tactic if one of your riders claims pole in qualifying and the other has the advantage in race distance. It is probably a little easier to achieve the desired results this way?
Christian Horner: It’s hard to say. In practice on Friday, in long series, nobody drove more than six laps, so in the race we waited for an encounter with the unknown. But Sergio has been doing really well lately, we see he feels confident behind the wheel and our drivers get along really well – it’s great.

Q: When Max became world champion, did that somehow affect his way of working, the style of driving?
Christian Horner: I think so. He is showing real professional maturity and the win in Baku in many ways compensated for last year’s failure at this track when a tire exploded in his car. By the way, that’s why we decided to change the tires again when there were less than 20 laps left before the finish.

We acted today, almost like at Le Mans: we gave him a control time to complete circles to minimize risks and not subject the car to too much stress.

As for Sergio, the engineers will figure out why his car’s rear tires were more severely affected as he usually works really well with tires. It is important to handle this for Montreal, as the route is similar in configuration to that in Baku.

Q: Your team is leading both championship standings with great confidence – how do you maintain the overall fighting spirit at a high level and not relax?
Christian Horner: You just need to prepare for each race separately. We saw how quickly the situation in the championship changed after the Australian Grand Prix, and only the first third of the season is behind us, and if we take the sprint races into account, then even that cannot be said. So there is still a very long way to go.