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Red Bull at the restart: 'We were concerned about the start performance'
Christian Horner thinks Verstappen achieved the best possible result in Bahrain. According to the Red Bull Racing team boss, Lewis Hamilton was simply too fast for the RB16. Also in terms of strategy, there was little possibility to have Verstappen finish ahead of Hamilton on Sunday. During the restart, there were also some concerns at the Austrian racing team about the second starting place, on the dirty side of the asphalt.
"The problem was that Lewis was a little bit too quick. Becuase we lost the first 8 laps under safety cars and red flags, it went to what could have been an optimal three stop, towards a two stop," Horner explains the Red Bull's strategy.
Few strategic choices for Red Bull
In the first stint, the field continued to run close together, so according to the British chief, it was not possible to do a pit stop earlier. Verstappen would otherwise have ended up in traffic. "The field didn't spread out in the first stint, so if we would have pitted we would have pitted into some traffic. I'm not sure what else we could have done. If we had pitted earlier on the first stop, we would have had couple of cars to pass and we wouldn't have been within the undercut. They would have been able to cover it. Unfortunately, Mercedes had too much pace and tyre life today," he added.
After Romain Grosjean's heavy crash, Verstappen was allowed to start from second place. That was exactly the place from which Valtteri Bottas struggled to get away from about an hour and a half earlier. "We were concerned about the start performance, starting on the dirty side of the grid for the restart. We were concerned that we might give up further places rather than gain. We did well to retain the position to Sergio into the first corner. I think our concern was that starting on the hard tyre we'd give up too much start performance," Horner said in the Red Bull press session.