Red Bull would use different strategy in position of Ferrari and Mercedes
General
- GPblog.com
Christian Horner believes Red Bull Racing made different strategic choices to Ferrari and Mercedes respectively in the British Grand Prix. The Austrian team boss thinks Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc did not get the most out of their Sunday. He says this in conversation with various media, including Motorsport.com.
Horner first expressed his surprise at Hamilton's pit stop on lap 33, when he switched to hard tyres instead of softs. At that point there were still twenty laps to go, but at Red Bull they think Hamilton should have managed that on the softest tyres, especially given the tyre degradation in the early part of the race. On softs, Hamilton could have made things much more difficult for the Ferraris (in the laps before the safety car on lap 39).
Charles Leclerc was in the lead at the time of Esteban Ocon' s stoppage. Ferrari decided to bring Carlos Sainz in as number two, but Leclerc stayed out. However, everyone behind the Monegasque went for fresh rubber and so he was the odd man out for the remaining laps of the Silverstone circuit.
Horner doesn't understand Ferrari's choice
"I suppose that the call I understood least was not to pit both their cars, or certainly Charles, for the soft tyre [at the safety car]," Horner said. He agrees that it is difficult to give up the lead, because at Mercedes they would probably have done the opposite of Leclerc. This is to keep the chance of victory as high as possible.
If Leclerc had dived in, Hamilton would have stayed out on his hard tyres. According to Horner there is a very good chance that Hamilton would have been overtaken by Leclerc again because of the tyre advantage. The British Red Bull chief therefore does not understand why Ferrari did not opt for a double pit stop under the safety car.