Christian Horner believed that if the last pit stop had gone as planned, Max Verstappen would have emerged as the winner of the Austrian GP. The intense battle between Verstappen and Lando Norris resulted in a collision. Despite not securing the victory, Red Bull showed exceptional performance throughout the weekend, as acknowledged by their team principal, Christian Horner. He expressed satisfaction with Verstappen’s flawless win in the sprint race and highlighted the eight-second advantage he had built in the main race before encountering a pit stop issue. Despite this setback, Horner stated that Red Bull had control of the race and could have secured the victory.
Horner emphasized that Red Bull had high hopes of winning the race in Spielberg. They were confident of achieving victory under normal circumstances. However, the latter part of the race, including the problematic pit stop and the incident with McLaren, disrupted their plans. This allowed Lando Norris to challenge Verstappen. Horner believed that if the pit stop issue had not occurred, Verstappen would have maintained a stronger lead, preventing Norris from closing in.
In addition to the collision between Red Bull and McLaren, another incident occurred at Turn 3 involving Fernando Alonso and Zhou Guanyu. Alonso rear-ended Guanyu’s car and admitted his mistake, resulting in a penalty. He explained that he did not anticipate the tire lock-up, which caused the car to accelerate instead of decelerate. Alonso attributed this to the loss of traction on the track when the tires lock-up, affecting the performance of his car.
Although Guanyu’s car also braked at the same time or slightly before, Alonso took full responsibility for the collision, acknowledging that it was his fault. He mentioned that he couldn’t react at that moment and even if he had reacted differently, it’s unlikely that he would have scored points in Sunday’s race.
Fernando Alonso respectfully accepts the blame for colliding with Guanyu as it was not his intention to do so. The Austrian GP proved to be another disappointing race for Aston Martin as they failed to score points. Fans remain hopeful that the team will perform better in the upcoming races.
