Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says that McLaren’s decision to put Lando Norris on soft tyres for the final stint at Silverstone was “baffling”. Norris was running second when leader Lewis Hamilton pitted from inters for softs, and third-placed Max Verstappen took hards.
Norris came in a lap later and despite having that knowledge and the possibility of taking new mediums the team put him onto softs. While Hamilton managed to make his last and hung on in front to take victory, Norris was quickly passed by Verstappen and had to settle for third.
McLaren boss Andrea Stella admitted after the race that, in hindsight, the mediums would have given Norris a better chance of holding onto second and potentially challenging Hamilton for the win.
Horner says that there was logic behind the decision to put Verstappen on hards for the final stint.
“A couple of reasons,” he said when asked about the choice.
“One, we’ve seen that the soft tyre was rubbish in the first stint with the drivers that had it, and the front opened up very quickly.
“We saw that a little bit on Friday. The hard tyre was more robust, and we felt was better for us. So we almost didn’t care what the others put on. We knew that the hard tyre was better for us. We had a bit of info from Checo at the beginning of the race, and it had seemed to have performed pretty well.
“What was baffling for us was McLaren were the only team that had a new medium available to them, and they chose not to run it, which would have been an ideal tyre for those conditions.
“And the hard tyre at the end of the race was very strong, particularly in the second sector, the high-speed sector. Max was massively quicker than the cars ahead.”
Christian Horner: British GP was tricky to predict
Horner acknowledged that the form of the three main contenders was hard to predict in the changeable conditions at Silverstone.
“I think if anybody can explain the pace of their car in today’s race, they’d be doing very well because it just seemed to move around,” he said.
“I think the Mercedes always been strong in the cooler conditions. And they looked to have things, and George [Russell] looked to have things pretty much under control.
“Then Lewis came alive, I think, as it started to rain. And then the McLaren really came alive. And they passed both of us. So it was moving around, depending on what was, what was going on.
“And in those conditions, you’d expect Max to then really come alive as well. But he was really struggling at that point. And then as the circuit dried out, or started drying out. Bang, the pace arrived back, and we were at times six or seven-tenths a lap quicker than Lewis and Lando at that point.”
Horner indicated that Red Bull has upgrades coming that will give the RB20 a further boost.
“If you look at them today, they were all driving on the limit,” he said. “And I think there’s stuff we have in the pipeline. Whilst we are at the top of the curve, there are still gains to be had.
“And inevitably, when it closes up, it’s down to those marginal fine details that make that difference. The form is moving around a bit. Mercedes were strong today, McLaren was strong last week. We won the week before at Barcelona.”
He added: “I think F1 can’t be in a better place at the moment. I mean, if you look at the last five, six races, we’ve had Lewis, we’ve had Lando, we’ve had Max, we’ve had Charles Leclerc, it’s moving around. And the only one that’s managed to be there consistently has been Max.”
