Although he later avoided controversy before the media, Sergio Pérez made it clear after the race that he was not happy to be asked to let Verstappen pass to win in Barcelona.
However, Horner insists it would have been an “unfair fight” because at the time the Dutchman was on a different three-stop strategy.
In the end, having relinquished the lead, Sergio Pérez also stopped three times and finally finished 13 seconds behind the #33 car.
The Red Bull manager said the Mexican couldn’t see the big picture during the heat of the battle.
“I spoke to him when he got out of the car,” he replied when asked by Motorsport.com how he would deal with Perez.
“The problem for any driver, if you don’t have a clear overview of the strategy or the race ahead, it’s always going to be tough to give up the lead.
“But he played in favor of the team, I think he clearly understood that it was not like a battle of equals, because the pace between the different strategies was so great that, from the point of view of the team, for me, it just did not have any It made sense for them to fight. That’s why we didn’t allow the drivers to fight for position.”
Max Verstappen had come behind Perez after a gust of wind on lap 9 caused him to go off track at turn 4 while second behind Charles Leclerc. There he lost a position to George Russell and his teammate.
“He quickly approached Checo, Checo let him try it on George,” Horner said. “And then obviously George was very strong in his defense, and without the benefit of consistent DRS, it was very difficult for Max to overtake.
“In the end it obviously worked out, but at that point we decided that our best way to beat George was to try to get a tire advantage with Max and make it a three-stop strategy.
“And at that point we were still undecided about three or two stops – you could see our tires were in better condition than some of our rivals.
“And then of course, unfortunately for Leclerc, the Ferrari dropped out. So at that point we made Max’s strategy one to three stops, which made it no longer match Checo’s. We managed to make a pit stop for get past George and then, of course, he quickly got close to Checo.”
Horner insisted that Verstappen’s pace advantage at that point in the race meant it would not have been logical for the two to fight.
“At that stage, there was a tire delta of about two seconds a lap. So with those temperatures, the water temperature, the oil temperature, a DRS that was working intermittently, it didn’t make any sense from a driving point of view. view of the team to let them fight, because it would have been an unfair fight,” he said.
“And in the end we had to stop Checo anyway. So both drivers worked together as a team, and getting maximum points was very important on a day where, unfortunately, Ferrari had a problem.
