Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes Mercedes’ Australian Grand Prix defeat was down to bad luck rather than bad strategy.
Lewis Hamilton led the race early on but fell to second place behind Sebastian Vettel through a Virtual Safety Car period, during which Vettel made his pit stop.
“They didn’t make a mistake at all, absolutely not,” said Horner. “They covered Kimi and it’s just one of those unlucky scenarios.”
“A Virtual Safety Car comes out right at the wrong moment for them, and Sebastian leapfrogs from third place to first place because instead of having a 23 second time through the pits with a pit stop deficit to your opponent because of the Virtual Safety Car, that becomes 13 seconds. So he gained 10 seconds free of charge. You don’t strategise for that, that’s just luck.”
Horner said the effect of the VSC outweighed any gains Mercedes could have made with their tactics.
“They had a slow pit stop, they dropped a second in the pit stop,” he said. “There’s always ifs and buts. How much was [Hamilton] holding back in the early stage of the race? Difficult to say.”
“But these VSCs, I’m not a big fan of them anyway. It neutralises the race but the pit stop advantage is significant. It’s just good luck or bad luck.”
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MG1982 (@mg1982)
25th March 2018, 9:28
Still a long way to go to catch RBR’s when it comes to “lucky moments” that ended up with a victory or something like that! If we really must remind ourselves that all RBR wins from 2014, 2015 etc were down to luck… Even today’s positions are kinda down to luck ’cause Haas retired both cars…
MG1982 (@mg1982)
25th March 2018, 9:31
This is just… Horner, the worst loser in the world.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
25th March 2018, 22:10
Whether Vettel or Hamilton or Raikkonen won made no difference to Red Bull Racing. Horner’s comment is simply how it is: This win was a fluke.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
26th March 2018, 7:22
Yeah, I know, but things are “even” overall. Every big team had their share of “lucky moments” over the decades. So, I guess by now one assumes that team principals are a bit more diplomatic and do not underline these aspects. To me it feels that comment from Horner was mostly malicious, must have been envy that Ferrari got lucky to win the race and having the 2nd car on the podium too, while none of his boys didn’t get on the podium, plus their race didn’t go down as planned because of Ferrari’s partner – Haas.
MacLeod (@macleod)
25th March 2018, 15:39
But what he said was what happened. You can argue it’s luck or mistake.
Just close the Pitt when there is an VSC problem solved.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
25th March 2018, 20:14
Horner is just doing his job, all the time.
Ivan Vinitskyy (@ivan-vinitskyy)
25th March 2018, 9:28
I can’t believe that is true. All teams monitor SC window, if they are outside it they know they aren’t safe. Ham had clear air and wasn’t pushing after the stop. If the team told him he wasn’t covered for SC he would have upped his pace.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
25th March 2018, 10:01
Facepalm ;) Teams do strategise for possible VSC/SC.
Toto said that Lewis did have much pace in hand that he could have opened a gap and stayed safe, he only needed approximately 1.6s, but the team decided not to push hard in order to make the tyres last for the whole stint.
That doesn’t hide the fact that Ferrari and Vettel were extremely lucky with the VSC perfect timing but credit to them they gambled on an outside chance and they got it.
BTW, I have seen this strategy used countless times by many teams who leaves their drivers out when they have nothing to lose hoping for the safety car tom come up.
Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
25th March 2018, 10:33
Maybe we need to consider closing the pits (ala NASCAR) during VSC situations?
Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
25th March 2018, 10:36
Or… Apply the VSC speed limit to put entrance and exit. But that’d be too logical.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
25th March 2018, 11:44
Things are debateable. I mean, the SCs are meant for the race track and on-track issues. There’re no problems on the pits lane or the teams can handle them, so why bother closing that lane?! The pit lane chaos is one of the few things that can spice up things. I know, it’s artificial, but kinda necessary when overtaking became almost impossible.
bosyber (@bosyber)
25th March 2018, 12:44
But the VSC also does not need to be for the whole track,if it is only about safety. It’s that way to avoid influencing the gaps,so from that same logic, making it also count for pit in,out seems a solid move @mg1982,as @braketurnaccelerate proposes.
Neil (@neilosjames)
25th March 2018, 12:25
I remember thinking many times when watching GP2/F2 that the pits should definitely be closed during VSC time, because it nearly always kicks out something crazy… it’s meant to neutralise the race, not hand a massive advantage to anyone who happened to get lucky.
Maybe now it’s had such a high-profile impact on an F1 result, rather than just messed up an F2 race, they’ll look at it again.
Deej92 (@deej92)
25th March 2018, 21:15
Helping take a predictable win off Hamilton? Kicking out something crazy is all the more reason to keep the pitlane open during VSC and create opportunities like this. No way will they be looking at this as any kind of issue.
new
26th March 2018, 9:20
+1
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
27th March 2018, 9:06
I think people still need to pit even under vsc or sc, but a 10sec (or time to be adjusted for vsc and sc depending on the track) stationary before any mechanics can attend the car could be fairer… This would reduce greatly the advantage of the pit under those conditions but still allow drivers to pit of needed.
Sole problem is if team wants to stack but it should be less likely if there is no clear advantage (except if there is a gap to rejoin behind the sc and then speed to catch up with the other car but still less effect as it is now).
Senham
25th March 2018, 11:11
Does anyone else think there might have been collusion between Haas and Ferrari for this win?
Waiting so long for his pit stop was sub- optimal for Vettel. Unless they were expecting a sc/vsc.
Strange coincidence.
Esploratore (@esploratore)
26th March 2018, 1:20
Think it was a gamble since he couldn’t do better than 3rd but even with the haases still in the race there was no way he’d lose position.
Markp
25th March 2018, 13:08
Baku last year as well. Hamilton, his fans and this ginger warrior spitting feathers just adds to the great mood I am in from a Ferrari victory.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
25th March 2018, 16:52
Hamilton could have pushed and did not. That opened the door for luck and luck came.
kanan
25th March 2018, 18:10
The salty fans… It’s like this is the first VSC/SC ever and an unmitigated disaster at that!
Don’t worry. Mercedes will win the rest of the races this year and probably the year after that and the year after that and so on. My God.
Furious Black Panther (@furious-black-panther)
26th March 2018, 2:43
Wise comments by Christian Horner.