Red Bull team boss Christian Horner took the diplomatic road in response to his drivers colliding at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix, ruling Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo’s clash as a “racing incident”.
It marked the first time in his Formula 1 career that the Australian had failed to complete Lap 1 with most deeming the 28-year-old as the victim of his teammate locking his brakes and understeering into the side of the leading RB13 rounding Turn 2.
However, Horner refused to apportion blame onto the Dutchman, simply revealing how he had reacted upon returning to the pits after finishing fifth.
“We have talked about racing incidents happening, I see that as a racing incident,” he claimed. “Max made a mistake. He stuck his hand up, he has apologized to his teammate. Daniel has accepted that apology. It happens.
“We have been lucky to have gone well over 12 months with them starting next to each other so often, without them having touched previously. So obviously there was no intention in it. It was just very frustrating.”
Horner also disagreed with the penalty the stewards issued which took Verstappen out of what would become the lead battle between Mercedes and Ferrari.
“I thought 10 seconds was quite heavy for the crime today,” he said, “particularly when you judge it against other incidents.”
The main frustration for the Briton was the lost points at what is traditionally a strong race for Red Bull at the Hungaroring, with the 19-year-old making up almost all the additional 10 seconds he had to wait at his pit stop.
“Certainly, the pace of the car in the race gave nothing away to either Ferrari or Mercedes, you could see after he served the penalty he was actually able to get back within 1.1 seconds of Bottas and was consistently the quickest car on the circuit,” Horner said.
“So frustrating that we only came away with 10 points when it should have been a lot more.”
He would also rue the continued inability to break into the top four and better in qualifying, leaving the Milton Keynes outfit unable to optimise their much more competitive race pace.
“Had we come around the first corner in clean air, then yes the car would have been capable [to win],” he believed, “But unfortunately from our position in qualifying compromised us.
“After that, there was the incident in Turn 2 that had a major impact on our afternoon.”
