Red Bull boss Christian Horner pointed out that Max Verstappen would get the track position after the pit stop and believes that the defending champion would have no trouble fending off a possible attack from Charles Leclerc
The French GP was marked by Charles Leclerc's accident while leading the race at Paul Ricard. The crash ended the chance of another race between the Monegasque and Max Verstappen. The Red Bull Dutchman had just made his pit stop when the Ferrari driver crashed on lap 17, and after that he calmly went on to his seventh win of the season.
Even though Leclerc managed to hold off the Dutchman in the early laps, Red Bull believes it would have won the French GP even had Charles stayed in the race. Christian Horner, the taurine's boss, revealed that Verstappen had enough of a lead and that Leclerc would come back behind the defending champion when he made his pit-stop.
"The tire wear was better than we expected in the race, being honest. Before the race we were more inclined to make two stops, and as the race developed we started to prioritize one stop. We decided to stop on lap 15 because we saw a gap for Max and we pulled the trigger. Halfway through the lap, he had the position on the track. From that point on, we just had to take care of the tires, and then on the next lap Charles crashed," Horner explained.
The two teams took different approaches to setting up their cars in Paul Ricard. Red Bull had the advantage on the straights, while Ferrari excelled in the last sector. For precisely this reason, the taurine boss believes that Verstappen would have no difficulty defending himself against a possible attack by Leclerc.
"It was interesting, because Max was able to stay very close to Charles for a long period without getting his tires stratospherically hot. As we had observed the rest of the weekend, we were very fast in the second sector, similar in the first and a bit slower in the third, which is basically turn 11," Christian said.
"But the race was good, he was keeping up with the DRS. Unfortunately we couldn't get close enough in turn 6 to really capitalize on the DRS on the straight. So that's why we gambled on securing track position. We would have been able to defend comfortably with the speed we had in the second sector. You can see that the difference between the two teams is very small, with each approaching different ways of being fast here," Horner concluded.
With the result, Verstappen opened up a 63-point lead in the Drivers' World Championship and Red Bull opened up an 82-point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors' World Championship. Formula 1 returns next Sunday (31) for the Hungarian Grand Prix, with full coverage byGRANDE PRÊMIO. The 13th round of the World Championship will be the last before the traditional European summer break.