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Red Bull has denied Max Verstappen was deliberately given the preferred race strategy to win last Sunday's Spanish grand prix. While the young Dutchman - who had qualified just behind his teammate on Saturday - was celebrating his first race win on debut for Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo was openly unhappy. "I will pull the guys aside who I need to ask what the deal was," the normally-grinning Australian said.
Indeed, Ricciardo was switched to a clearly-inferior three stop strategy during the race -- as was Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. Both men were unhappy, unlike Verstappen and Vettel's teammate Kimi Raikkonen who diced until the last metres of the race on the two-stop option.
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A strategist from a rival team was quoted by Germany's Auto Motor und Sport: "Red Bull put Ricciardo on the worst possible strategy. From the outside, it looked as though the team wanted Verstappen to win, and then Ferrari made the mistake of reacting to Ricciardo's strategy with Vettel."
But team boss Christian Horner defended Red Bull's decision to put Ricciardo on a three-stop. "It was clear that Ferrari could only beat us if they tried with three stops, so it made sense to put the better-placed car with Vettel and at that time it was Ricciardo. You're always smarter afterwards," he added. (GMM)
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Replies (6)
Login to replyboudy
Posts: 1,168
He ran more downforce which was eating his tyres also.
mclarenfan1968
Posts: 1,027
They used Ricciardo as bait to force vettel onto a 3 stopper. Pure and simple. Trying to dress it up is not going to fool anyone. Ferrari just took the bait like a good sucker. That's what happened.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
It was definitely a worse strategy for the situation. It is beyond me why they didnt adjust it, had they done so they could've finished with a double podium, instead Ricciardo limped in to fourth place.
mclarenfan1968
Posts: 1,027
There are many things happening we don't get to see behind closed doors.
Who is to say there isn't a big sponsorship deal coming in if Max suddenly becomes their new star to show off? If it is a lot of money sacrificing Ricciardo's win to Max suits RBR just fine, if they didn't switch Ricciardo would have won just the same, they had an almost assured win either way, barring vettel overtaking Ricciardo throwing one up the inside had their strategies remained 2 stoppers.
Patentprutser
Posts: 396
If it was turned around, everyone would shout that RB where afraid Max would overrun Ricciardo. It turned out fine for Max, but it has to be said that Ricciardo didn't look good enough after his tires
mclarenfan1968
Posts: 1,027
Not even close, Ricciardo cleaned Max's clocks and mopped the floor with him in qualifying, in race beyond the race strategy shift Max had nothing on Ricciardo. I couldn't care less about Ricciardo as he has won two races by fluking into SCD fortunes robbing Vettel of two wins in 2014 but let's not let fanboyism get in the way to not realize Ricciardo made max hype look nothing special.