Verstappen accepts Red Bull strategy explanation

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner insists Max Verstappen accepted Red Bull's explanation as to why he lost out to teammate Daniel Ricciardo on strategy in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Verstappen was running fourth and pushing Valtteri Bottas hard for the final podium position in Monte Carlo, and was called to pit first in order to try and jump the Mercedes. Bottas responded by pitting on the next lap and retaining the position, but Ricciardo – running behind both at the time – ran longer and posted faster lap times in clear air to get ahead of the pair and finish third.

With Verstappen delivering an expletive-ridden message on team radio, Horner (pictured above, with Verstappen) was asked if it had been hard to explain what had happened to the 19-year-old. He replied: "No, not at all.

"After he got back here and sat down and we went through it calmly... Of course when emotions are running high in the car, of course you'd expect him – he had just seen his teammate go from behind him to being ahead of him and in a podium position – so of course he was excited on the radio.

"But having looked at the facts and understanding the circumstances of how and why these things happen, he could understand the scenario and he was understanding that it didn't work for him and one day it will go for him."

Explaining how the strategy came about, Horner says Verstappen did gain time over Bottas by pitting earlier but not enough to get ahead of the Mercedes.

"We've scored a podium not through attrition, just on performance. Obviously the drivers over the last couple of days had varying fortunes, Daniel feeling aggrieved [in qualifying] getting traffic on his out lap, and Max having been a position where he is fighting Bottas to then see Daniel get the podium wasn't what he had in mind.

"But when you break these things down and look at it logically, by the time when decisions were made, we were racing Bottas and our objective was to try and undercut Bottas. We could see that the cars were coming up to some traffic, and Max put himself into a great position. Unfortunately we lost about a second through the pit lane, through the stop, the getaway, just the positioning that we had compared to Bottas. And that would have been enough, combined with Max's out lap, to have got the jump on Bottas.

"In turn, Bottas covered us, because he was focused on Max – which then opened up the opportunity for Daniel giving him some clean air, which he exploited to good effect and converted that – managed to jump both the guys and achieve the third place.

"From a team point of view, 25 points and a podium in Monaco is an excellent performance. Our ideal objective is to get both of the drivers past Bottas, which unfortunately was not achievable."

Horner admitted Red Bull made use of having two cars fighting one Mercedes to get the better of the strategic battle, even though it wasn't sure which approach would prove the more successful.

"It is the classic example. The other option was we could have pitted Daniel first, but then if he had had a clean out lap he could have undercut Max. Then you are having to make another explanation. So this race is always going to throw up those kind of scenarios."