F1: Red Bull made key strategy call on the grid

Red Bull’s Christian Horner said a strategy change on the grid was instrumental in Max Verstappen’s Hungarian Grand Prix 10th to 1st win.

“We switched our strategy on the grid,” Horner told Sky F1. “Going to the grid, both drivers (Verstappen and Perez) felt they were struggling to generate temperature in the soft tires, which were the tires to get to the grid, and we were due to start the race on the hard tires.

“So we switched it on the grid to deal with the ambient conditions and a bit of rain around and so on, and the soft tires went much further than we’d thought. So at that point we committed to a two-stop and went on to soft-medium-medium.

“I think the key moment for the race for us – well, there were several key moments – was obviously as soon as we saw Charles go onto the hard tires, I thought ‘okay, we’ve really got a chance now’.”

“We were going to start them both on the hard tires,” added Horner. “That was statistically, if you follow the data, the best way for us to achieve what would have been maybe a fifth and sixth in the race.

“But of course sometimes the data has to go out of the window, where you look up and see what the weather’s doing and the temperature, and you listen to the drivers, and both drivers were complaining they couldn’t generate the temperature on the softs on the way to the grid.

“So it’s a question of okay, we need to change our strategy here.”