Red Bull’s Christian Horner: “We’re still ahead but we know how quickly things can change”

Christian Horner admitted that Scuderia Ferrari had the edge over Oracle Red Bull Racing during Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix, although Max Verstappen’s tyre degradation also did not help the Milton Keynes-based outfit.

Verstappen started the race at the Red Bull Ring from pole position but was unable to fend off the challenge of Charles Leclerc early on, and the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr. was also in contention to beat the Dutchman until his engine failed late on.  The reigning World Champion was able to salvage second at the chequered flag.

The second Red Bull of Sergio Pérez was an early casualty in the race after first lap contact with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s George Russell seeing the Mexican suffer a lot of damage to his car, so much that the team opted to retire him to save on engine mileage.

Horner says he is pleased his team only dropped five points to Ferrari across the British and Austrian Grand Prix weekends, but it is important they keep pushing to fight back against their rivals quickly.

“We scored some really important points today but it just wasn’t meant to be for us,” said Horner, the Team Principal at Red Bull. “Congratulations to Ferrari, although they were unlucky with Carlos, they had the faster car for the majority of the race which gave them more strategic options but Max’s tyre deg was higher from halfway through the first stint and it was hard to combat that.

“Over the two races this weekend, we’ve only given away five points to Ferrari but obviously we’re really disappointed for Checo today. There was so much damage to his car from George that there was no chance for him to score any points and we had to retire him and save the mileage.

“We’ll do everything we can to bounce back in France, we’re still ahead but we know how quickly things can change and we need to keep pushing.”

Like Verstappen, Horner condemned the actions of some of the fans at the Red Bull Ring that were found to have been abusive to others during the weekend, and he says he is united with everyone within the paddock to try and rid the sport of this kind of action.

“We are shocked to hear that there have been some incidents of abusive behaviour in the grandstands and the fan parks,” he said.  “We stand united with every member of the F1 community in condemning this.

“We value inclusion and want a safe space for fans to enjoy our sport.”