Christian Horner responds to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull ‘did a lot wrong’ claim in Austria

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Christian Horner on the grid at the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix.

Christian Horner has looked for perspective as Max Verstappen said Red Bull “did a lot of stuff wrong” in the Austrian Grand Prix.

Verstappen explained in his post-race media session that Red Bull’s pit stops were a “disaster” that meant he “gave up free lap time” to allow Lando Norris back into the hunt on Sunday, but with that came the additional risk of contact – which duly came as the pair battled for the lead.

Christian Horner: ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing’ after Max Verstappen critique

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Verstappen and Norris collided as they fought at the front just a handful of laps from the end, causing punctures on both cars as they were forced to crawl back to the pit lane while George Russell stormed through for an unlikely victory.

Norris was forced to retire while Verstappen was able to get back out on track to finish fifth, but the three-time World Champion believes a rare slow second stop from Red Bull is what helped Norris back into proceedings in the first place.

“From our side we have to look at the whole race because I think we did a lot of stuff wrong,” Verstappen said after the race.

“We had two very poor pit stops which basically put us back, and that’s why we were fighting to the end because we had a very healthy lead.

“We could definitely have had a different race if we’d executed the race a lot better, so there’s definitely a few things to look at and do better for next week.”

More reaction from the Austrian Grand Prix weekend

👉 Austrian GP driver ratings: Max Verstappen rating takes big hit with costly mistake

👉 Austrian GP conclusions: Verstappen vs Norris, Adrian Newey theory, valuable Russell lesson

Speaking afterwards, Red Bull team principal Horner looked to put the three-time World Champion’s views into perspective – and accepted that, while “hindsight is a wonderful thing”, the fact he came away from the weekend with a bigger lead in the Drivers’ Championship means the weekend was not a total loss.

“You’ve spoken to him when he’s just had a tough race,” Horner said to media including PlanetF1.com when presented with Verstappen’s comments.

“I think with the strategy for us, we were going into the race looking at medium-hard-hard and if you look, what I think he’s talking about is the point at which we stopped, at the second stop because we extended to cover Norris.

“Whilst we were quicker than Norris, it makes sense to do that because, you get unlucky with a Safety Car, you lose track position.

“So therefore, whilst we had the pace on Lando and were able to be maintaining and pulling a gap, it sometimes tactically it makes sense to do that.

“Probably we would have been better off with a new medium versus the new hard, but you know, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

“Look, the pace of the car has been very strong this weekend. We’ve had two poles, he’s led all but nine laps of the race, the Sprint race yesterday, he’s extended his lead in the championship, we’ve extended our lead I think in the Constructors’ Championship, so despite not getting the win, it’s not been totally disastrous.”