The return of Formula 1 to the tracks was marked by the announcement of Audi as an engine manufacturer from the 2026 season, but once the German firm finished with its presentation, it was the sanctions of Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen that grabbed the headlines.
Both candidates for the 2022 title fitted new components to their power units, for which they each received penalties that would force them to start from the back of the grid in the race at Spa-Francorchamps. That led to the question of why they made that decision at Red Bull with the current leader of the general classification to the boss of the Milton Keynes team.
“You strategically look at the calendar, I think we thought it was too tight to get to the end of the year with the engines we have, so you look at the circuits that are coming up,” said Christian Horner . “In Zandvoort, you don’t want to, Monza is harder to overtake than you think, Singapore doesn’t want to overtake either, and in Japan it’s hard to overtake.”
“So you start to run out of options. This is a good track to overtake, we think we should be quick here, that’s why we decided to take the opportunity,” commented the energy drinks team manager.
The sanctions against Verstappen and Leclerc open up the possibility of a fight between Carlos Sainz and Sergio Pérez for the victory, something that Horner is aware of: “It seems that Carlos [Sainz] is not going to penalize. Mercedes, obviously, neither, so that there are going to be two races, which is going to be fascinating”
“We’re going to see them fighting at the front, and we’ll see how quickly Max [Verstappen] and Charles [Leclerc] can work their way through the pack. On a circuit like this where you can overtake, I think it’s going to be a incredible race,” said the Briton.
The Red Bull boss insisted that the choice of Spa-Francorchamps to serve the penalties was evident from the difficulties presented by other tracks: “The problem with Zandvoort is that it is narrow, twisty and very difficult to overtake. Here is the delta smallest overtaking time needed for the season, like Bahrain, and they’re probably two of the easiest circuits on the calendar to do a run at.”
“That’s why maybe a lot of people have chosen this circuit to take that penalty, to try to get extra engines for the rest of the year,” concluded the Milton Keynes team’s chief executive.
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