Horner surprised at McLaren's tactics: 'That was crucial for Verstappen'

When Lando Norris overtook first Max Verstappen and then leader George Russell in the early stages of the race, the Brit looked to be on his way to victory. "As the track was drying out, it looked like the Mercedes was in more trouble, and we were struggling to get past, and that then gave Lando a free pass. At that point, it looked like McLaren were the favourites to just walk away and win the race."

Horner saw McLaren make the wrong decision

Suddenly, everything changed: a saftey car arrived and Verstappen went in for a new set of intermediates. Some adjustments were also made to the RB20, which turned out well in hindsight. But Lando Norris stayed out longer, even creating a 20-second gap, hoping to outsmart Verstappen after his pit stop. That turned out to be the wrong tactic, Horner saw.

"When you drive out of the pit lane, you obviously lose a huge amount of the temperature, so I felt that we timed that about right going on to the medium tyre. And then whilst Lando was able to capitalise enough to, essentially, hit the 20-second mark, and it hovered around that for a lap. Obviously with each lap we did, the tyres were getting warmer. I was surprised that they [McLaren] didn't cover after one lap, they left him for two, and that was crucial because it gave Max another lap to generate the temperature."

"So when Lando did pit, Max just had tyres that were in the window and was able to drive straight past and pull out pretty much a three second gap by sector one. So that timing was crucial," said the Red Bull team boss, who felt it was a "fantastic win" for Verstappen.