Red Bull boss Christian Horner insists he wouldn’t have ordered Lando Norris to surrender the lead of last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix if he was in charge of McLaren.
Norris was told by his team to allow Oscar Piastri through after the Australian pitted early from the lead of the race to protect the McLaren pair against Lewis Hamilton.
Piastri went on to claim his maiden win in Formula One, but only after Norris spent 20 laps in the lead before allowing his team-mate to pass.
That call came in for criticism given Norris is the closest title challenger to Max Verstappen and will need all the points he can get if he is to prevent the Dutchman from winning a fourth successive world championship.
Norris insists there is no need to make him the team’s No 1 driver at this stage – but Verstappen’s boss, Horner, was surprised by how things unfolded in Budapest.
Christian Horner says he wouldn’t have ordered Lando Norris to give up the lead in Budapest
Oscar Piastri (right) claimed his maiden win in F1 after Lando Norris surrendered the lead
‘Lando is the experienced driver and the number one driver I assume,’ said Horner.
‘It’s standard practice to give the lead driver the first stop and (they) could have done that quite easily with Oscar.
‘But they gave a two-lap undercut to Lando, so obviously wanted him ahead of Oscar. Having put him ahead, it’s tough on the driver to say “we want you to drop behind your team-mate”.
‘If this championship is lost by seven points at the end of the year, every point counts at the end of the day.
‘Different teams go racing in a different way but Lando is the closest challenger and you have to put your eggs in one basket at some point.’
Horner also confirmed there is no issue between Verstappen and the rest of the team following a series of tetchy conversations over the team radio in Hungary.
Verstappen was accused of showing a lack of respect after the episode, though Horner insists the relationship is as strong as ever.
He said: ‘Max was pretty sporty in his communication but if you had a microphone on every footballer in the Premier League, I’m sure you would hear some fairly vibrant language.
Norris initially declined to let team-mate Piastri pass him before later agreeing to do so
There were jubilant celebrations for Piastri as the Australian claimed his inaugural GP win
Horner also confirmed there is no issue between Max Verstappen and the rest of the team
‘Max is a passionate racer and races with a heart on his sleeve. That’s part of what makes Max as good as he is.
‘It’s not personal or meant to offend everyone but the world we live in in F1, you interview him before you get in the car, they have a microphone while driving the car, shove a microphone under their nose as soon as they got out of the car, so it’s natural there will be an element of venting.
‘We talk about things. GP (Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen’s race engineer) and Max have had a great relationship over eight years. They know each other inside out. We talked about it on Thursday and quickly moved on.’