Christian Horner rejects Max Verstappen strategy complaint after angry radio message

Verstappen believed he could have closed the gap to race leader Charles Leclerc had he been allowed to be more aggressive on his out-lap but the Red Bull boss insists it would have made little difference

Red Bull failed to score a point on the opening weekend after a ‘brutal’ double DNF (Getty Images)

Christian Horner has dismissed Max Verstappen’s suggestion that Red Bull had two opportunities to pass Charles Leclerc at the Bahrain Grand Prix but were too conservative with their tyre strategy.

Red Bull twice attempted to undercut the Ferrari driver by bringing Verstappen into the pits early but the defending champion was left furious after being told to look after his tyres on the out lap.

Follow all the latest F1 news LIVE!

After the undercut failed and Leclerc retook the lead following his pit-stop, Verstappen vented his frustration on the team radio. “This is now two times that I take it easy on the out-lap, that I could have been in front,” he said. “I am never, ever doing it again!”

Verstappen believed he could have made it past Leclerc had he been more aggressive on his fresh set of tyres but speaking after the race, Horner was insistent that it would have made no difference in the long run and might have even damaged Red Bull’s chances later in the race due to early degradation.

Red Bull went on to suffer a “brutal” double DNF, however, after both Verstappen and Sergio Perez failed to finish the race due to fuel-load issues, leaving Ferrari to secure a one-two.

But explaining the exchange with Verstappen and Red Bull’s decision to play it safe on the out-lap, Horner told Sky Sports F1: “I think it’s always a fine margin. He felt that he could have done more, and I think that, combined with a slightly quicker stop than the Ferrari, had put us very very close to them.

“But I think even if we’d have made the pass, I think their pace was such that they would have, with overtaking being a little bit easier now, they would have just overtaken. They just had a quicker car, so congrats to them on their one-two finish, zero point for us is tough.”

Horner was upbeat when reflecting on finishing the opening weekend with zero points and the Red Bull boss believes the team can be competitive with Ferrari this season despite the Italian team having the early lead in the standings, as well as the edge in terms of on-track performance.

“I think the positives we can take is we’ve had a competitive car, we were fighting for the race win at different points of that race,” he added. “We’ve got to get on top of these issues quickly and it’s a long long season, 23 races, got to get this behind us, get stuck into the next event.”