Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, Baku City Circuit, 2018

Red Bull has “given away 65 points this year” – Horner

2018 F1 season

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Red Bull has wasted too many points-scoring opportunities this year and should be among the leaders in the constructors’ championship, says team principal Christian Horner.

The team lies third in the championship, 71 points behind Mercedes, after Daniel Ricciardo scored their second victory of the year in Monaco last weekend. However his under-fire team mate Max Verstappen only finished ninth after he crashed in practice and had to start from last place.

It was the latest in a series of incidents for Verstappen which have cost Red Bull points this year, as Horner admitted.

“If you are giving away points through damage it is expensive on two counts,” he said. “It is costing money to repair the car and you are giving away valuable points in the constructors’ championship.

“We should be right there with Mercedes and Ferrari and we have probably given away 65 points this year. We need both drivers performing at optimum to be able to fight with those two teams.”

Horner said Monaco was a “very painful” weekend for Verstappen, who showed similar pace to Ricciardo before his crash.

Red Bull’s results in 2018

Daniel RicciardoMax Verstappen
RaceResultNotesResultNotes
Australia4th6thSpun
BahrainDNFPower unit failureDNFCollided with Lewis Hamilton
China1st5thWent off, collided with Sebastian Vettel
AzerbaijanDNFCollided with team mateDNFCollided with team mate
Spain5thSpun after VSC3rd
Monaco1st9thMissed qualifying after crashing in practice

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59 comments on “Red Bull has “given away 65 points this year” – Horner”

  1. Who cares? Verstappen insists that he has made only two mistakes – in China and Monaco, the races where he could have won. Verstappen will never acknowledge his spin in Bahrain; the fact that he damaged his floor in Australia which led to his spin; the fact that he closed the door before Ricciardo in Baku; the fact that he doesn’t see racers in front. Verstappen doesn’t care unless he thinks that he lost a win.
    Given that people never change, Verstappen will try the same reckless approach in all races this season.
    PS: And given that Verstappen has to try that hard to be faster than Ricciardo, I can safely assume that … Ricciardo has more talent than Verstappen.

    1. I don’t know, it’s sure it was a damaged floor in AUS what caused the spin? My impression was/is it might have been a simple driving error OR a driving error caused by an unbalanced car. I remember he asked the team before the race (do not remember if it was FP3, Quali) to change his brake-bias setup, more to the front, less to the rear. And if I remember correctly… again… after he required this change of the setup, he had another moment where the rear went “wild”, but managed to save it from another spin.

      1. @mg1982 He damaged the floor when he was pushing too hard to try clear Magnussen by running wide out of turn 12 in Melbourne a few laps before his spin. You could clearly see bits falling off the car in the replays.

        1. Smart thinking… do you have any footage of Verstappen actually damaging his floor…?
          FIA hasn’t, RBR was kind of cluelss as well… fan must know better then….

    2. GtisBetter (@)
      31st May 2018, 16:13

      Well, he didn’t do anything wrong in Bahrein, it was engine mapping. Baku was a race incident. These things happen quite a lot in f1.

      1. @passingisoverrated Just beacuse he didn’t get penalised for weaving does’n mean he didn’t do it. He kept moving left and right until the two of them collided.

      2. @passingisoverrated, if you are talking about the crash that Verstappen had in the first qualifying session, that wasn’t a mapping issue. Horner later stated that there was no “150bhp power surge” – Verstappen just applied too much throttle when he hit the kerbs and lost control by himself. https://www.eurosport.co.uk/formula-1/bahrain-grand-prix/2018/verstappen-s-right-foot-caused-bahrain-crash_sto6711276/story.shtml

        1. not really, RBR explained it very well that the throttle by wire was a bit more then expected in that situation (turn) but seems noone ever did read that.

          1. @macleod, I have not seen any statement from Red Bull which put the crash down to problems with the throttle, and in fact Horner made multiple statements to the press where he said that the throttle was not to blame for the accident.

            In his post qualifying statements, Horner variously blamed it on an “oscillation of the right foot” due to Verstappen riding the kerbs too aggressively, then later blamed a gear shift issue – but in both cases he explicitly stated that there was not a problem with the throttle system.

            As far as I can tell, Max was the only member of Red Bull who linked his crash to a throttle issue, even though there were statements from other drivers, such as Hulkenberg, who said that they had never experienced any sort of throttle problem of the type that Verstappen claimed he had.

          2. There was indeed a power surge problem, later confirmed by horner here on f1 fanatic, go check if you don’t believe it, I saw it at the time and so at least for that stop blaming verstappen.

            He surely is at fault for australia spin, bahrain race crash, china crash, baku weaving, monaco crash which is plenty, without adding mechanical related ones.

          3. @esploratore
            You’ve been giving a link by anon (and you can find it on several other sites too, but it originates from ‘autosport’). There was indeed a ‘power surge problem’, but caused by “oscillation of the right foot” of MV.

      3. @passingisoverrated

        Well, he didn’t do anything wrong in Bahrein

        Well, he actually did, twice. First, in qualy (Abiteboul described what happened, so did Horner. Read: Verstappen made a mistake). Second, in the race… because he got a puncture. Because he does something, and only after that starts thinking.
        Horner in private told several people that “Verstappen made a mistake”, and when the press found out that, Horner instantly tried to protect Verstappen, like he (almost) always does.

  2. Martijn (@)
    31st May 2018, 9:01

    Notwithstanding that Max needs to improve and Horner is right, I guess Max could have said the same on last years’ team/Renault performance at the start of the season, which costed him a similar amount of point or worse

    1. But the context is that they should be in the championship fight this year. Yes, RBR and Renault threw away a good many points last year due to reliability, but they were never going to win the title with that car. This one seems title-capable, so it’s far more important to maximize the points on offer if there’s a sniff at the championship as opposed to just bagging a few more points in 3rd position.

    2. ” (..) could have said the same (..) ” – Rest assure, he did do that, constantly. Thing is, the car is base, the driver is there to ‘execute’ the potential, the product of the whole team. Like a football team putting a huge effort in giving their striker a scoring opportunity, only for him to miss. It feel like a ‘loss’.

  3. Yes the pressure is certainly on Verstappen, I’m sure that during and since the Monaco GP he has had it made very clear to him what is expected of a driver in one of the top teams. Although I do not go with the hype connected to him, I do think he is a good driver with a lot of untapped talent and deserves a second chance to show he can deliver.
    I think the hardest thing will be can he moderate his ‘flat out all of the time’ style and still be as quick as Ricciardo. I would like him to achieve that.
    The rest of the season will be interesting.

    1. I totally agree. Please RBR, provide some guidance for Max and make him listen. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season as well!

      1. Guidance is missing at RBR, instead they put full pressure on both drivers on not the best of moments.

  4. A good summary on how the golden boy of this team is doing a bang up job for fight in constructor title.

  5. So it’s not just fanboys, team principals also play this “what could have been” game! 🙂

    1. I’m pretty sure Mercedes is doing the same yes. They could have won several races too. Or have warned Bottas about debris on track etc. Ferrari also missed out on some wins they should have had and technical issues.

      All in all I doubt Red Bull would have been in a better position if all teams and drivers had not faltered here and there.

      1. Agreed. Of the 65 points Horner speaks of, let’s appreciate that there is always going to be some damage that they expect and plan for and budget for, after all, they are racing in anger. So it’s not realistically 65 points unless one expects perfection. Sure Max has cost RBR more than any other driver has cost his team, but let’s face it, we’ve seen since early in the season that it was likely going to be between Merc and Ferrari for the Championships with RBR running third again, when we average everything out over the various track types. I do wonder if Max has been overdriving due to this reality.

        1. There’s no comparison between the points wasted by verstappen and the ones wasted by other drivers in top teams, it’s not just “more points”, it’s “hell of a lot more points”:

          1) Australia, without his mistake would’ve got 4th, 4 points lost, but ricciardo would’ve been 5th, so only 2 points lost for red bull
          2) Bahrain, considering red bull’s pace, verstappen could’ve ended in front of hamilton and ricciardo even further ahead, but if we correct for reliability raikkonen should also get the wheel mistake corrected, so if we just look at verstappen, 15 points lost for both him and red bull
          3) China, verstappen should’ve won, got 5th mostly cause of vettel contact, so he lost 15 points, but had he won ricciardo would’ve lost 7, so only 8 points lost for red bull
          4) Baku, I’ve seen people estimate they could’ve won the race if not for the crash, absurd imo, they were 22 sec behind hamilton at 15 laps to go, not even sure they’d overtake him, so they lost 22 points there
          5) Monaco, ricciardo looked strong all weekend, I think verstappen would’ve been 2nd, 16 points lost for him and red bull

          I get 63 points lost for red bull due to crashes, perhaps they considered some slightly better result possible, which is not to exclude (australia VSC), and verstappen cost basically all of them, that’s heavy, but I think red bull would have more chance on the WCC than WDC since they don’t have a number 1 or 2 driver, so inevitably mercedes and ferrari sacrifice their number 2 drivers and are stronger in the WDC than they’d be in the WCC.

          1. Those numbers also ignore that in China it was rather Bottas that should have won. And the same could be said for Baku, so really those numbers should be adjusted to reflect that.

        2. Robbie still spreading this “RB is bound to third place, so why would we, as RB, even bother” – reasoning. He would be a great leader/team boss.

          “we’ve seen since early in the season that it was likely going to be between Merc and Ferrari for the Championships with RBR running third again” – Yet RB have just as many wins as Fer or Mer. And team bosses, media, sport followers, all agree it’s a three horse race. RB is there to win as many as possible, not to concede to a so called likely scenario. Focusing all off their efforts on maximising their own potential, should see them very much in contention, especially if the other two keep losing points and wins over the course of the season.

          The only reason robbie’s been doing this, is to excuse his hero, Max, claiming Max has ‘experimented’ his way through the first 6 races of the season. Experimenting and overdriving: “I do wonder if Max has been overdriving due to this reality (that RB is bound to third)”. “It’s like he’s just over driving it perhaps to make up for the hp deficit or something”
          Cut the BS (and if even so, since when is ‘overdriving’ a legitimate excuse?).

          1. @krxx As if RBR would concede to third place, and nowhere have I suggested that. Nowhere have I suggested they shouldn’t bother. So…cut the bs on that. But it has only been since we actually saw proof that RBR was competitive at Monaco with that win, that there is any suggestion that it is a three horse race. Realistically it is not, because realistically the bulk of the remaining tracks will see it go back to something more expected, by everyone’s expectation, as pointed out by pundits at Monaco…RBR will not be as strong, Mercedes not as weak, after Monaco. RBR has just as many wins because of unusual circumstances for DR’s first win, an inherited one.

            Don’t get me wrong, I would love it if suddenly RBR has a WCC and WDC level car for the rest of the season. What a great thing that would be for F1, RBR, DR, MV, and all fans. That could put Max up there leading and winning some races just as easily as DR. But Monaco aside, RBR have been sitting a distant third, with the next best team distant from them. Assuming Mercedes and Ferrari remain just as relatively strong as they have been, at the majority of the tracks, it seems quite a safe bet and nothing to do with ‘conceding’ whatsoever, that RBR will remain quite alone in third, barring some really meaty mid-season change in form.

            Overdriving is not something I am suggesting as an ‘excuse’. That’s just a convenient word to use by those who either don’t like Max or don’t like posters who defend Max. Overdriving is still making mistakes, but I’m just trying to reason why Max is more ragged this season so far than last year. I just wonder if the difference is that he expected himself and the car to be doing better than last year, and Max himself has lamented their lack of hp which can catch them out on most tracks. Surely we can agree pace is not his issue, but perhaps too much pace is, or too much impatience. Since most seem to agree he is formidable and will likely learn from these lessons and go on to have a brilliant career, I consider this a blip on the radar, and a situation that will improve. So when posters suggest things such as his age, or inexperience, or he’s just a Maldonado, or what have you…uh…no…he’s actually quite unique and special imho, and by the time he is DR’s age he will have achieved much more than DR has up until now.

            That’s not a slag against DR. Just a speculation as we do know what DR has done so far, and let’s imagine what Max will do in the next 8 seasons. The other drivers can only hope Max doesn’t learn from this season, but the odds of that are likely nil.

    2. Did he factor in that the collision in Azerbaijan cost Vettel and Bottas a lot of points too in the aftermath.

  6. Verstappen will likely end up being the best driver on the grid at some point in his career, and likely find his name among the all time greats. But he has a lot of rough edges to work out first, and this year he seems to be in a bad place mentally where he isn’t stringing together results he should. The same can be said of most greats, Hamilton and Vettel have also had rough patches.

    Ricciardo strikes me as being more like Alonso, absolutely relentless and consistent but when a driver such as Verstappen or Hamilton is in their zone doesn’t really have an answer for them. At the moment this makes Ricciardo the better driver as the points have reflected in the three seasons they’ve been team mates, I think he’s stronger mentally and even if he doesn’t quite have Verstappens car control, he’s a smarter driver.

    1. Agree, but not with the part regarding HAM and even VET. I’m no particular fan, but HAM was a special case – in a positive way, at least since I started to watch F1. HAM was fast, consistent and very little prone to mistakes since day1 in F1. That’s why he was a title contender all season long in 2007, ’cause he was very good out of the box in all departments. To be honest, I do not see significant growth as a driver for HAM in his 11 years carreer, that good he was from day1. Who knows, VER actually might be faster than HAM ever was, but he’s doing so many mistakes that it doesn’t matter in the end if he can’t finish the races and collect the points. So, I think the comparison with HAM and VET doesn’t stand, overall VER being significantly worse than those 2 for the beginning of the carreer.

      1. @mg1982 I think the consensus view is that articulated by @philipgb, I can’t recognise that Lewis hasnot developed as a driver through his career, the evidence points otherwise. He has matured and the same is true for Sebastian especially this season. Sebastian can reflect that 2017 was very close with Lewis, but Lewis knew how to play the long game, however on a couple of occasions Sebastian drove rashly. This season we are seeing a very measured Seb! And I expect it to be even closer between the two of them.

        Verstappen, I would agree is behind on development based on his experience however he may yet come good this season.

      2. @mg1982

        I’m not suggesting it’s exactly like for like, but Hamilton would have won 2007 if he were the driver he is today in my opinion, and 2011 was a fairly rough year for him.

        Likewise Vettel in 2010. Had a couple of ropey performances and then another dip in 2014.

      3. @mg1982 I don’t think there is much difference between how Vettel and Verstappen started. Both started great with a an unexpected (gifted) win in their first season. After that both have had a a huge list of incidents.

        Vettel would have been WDC if he had kept out of trouble a bit more. First race he crashed into Kubica for no reason at all, spun of in Malaysia and ran into the wall in Monaco. Sounds pretty similar to what Verstappen did this season.

        Has there been any season where Vettel didn’t crash with other contenders a few times? He got the nickname crashjid in 2010 because he had so many accidents

        Last season again, he would have been WDC if he hadn’t rammed Hamilton in Baku and hadn’t crashed into Verstappen and Raikkonen in Singapore. On top of that he also had incidents in Canada, Silverstone and Mexico where he ran into other cars ahead of him.

        Vettel is a fine driver if he’s all alone (especially in the fastest car, from pole and in the lead), but if he’s near other cars and actually fighting or position, then I would say Vettel hits them more often than Verstappen does.

        1. @patrickl vettel was 46 points behind last season in the end, in baku vettel threw away 13 points and in singapore remember it rained for the first 1\3 of the race, based on their starting positions I’d expect verstappen, hamilton, vettel, based on this hamilton gained 7 points and vettel lost 15, for a total of 22 points swing, total of 35 between the 2 races, even if you consider a slightly higher position for vettel it’s not enough, which says enough about mercedes vs ferrari 2017 overall.

          1. And while vettel had the other incidents you said, hamilton had weekends off pace too.

          2. @esploratore

            In Baku Vettel threw away 13 points and in Singapore 25 points for the easy win. You have got to be kidding me he wouldn’t have gotten that otherwise. Plus taking out the top 3 and causing a mess he helped Hamilton from 5th to the lead donating Hamilton an extra 10 points. ie 48 points in total. Could have been a few less, but those two blunders obviously cost him hugely already, pretty much negating his chances of a WDC.

            Besides the poor performances I mentioned in Canada, Silverstone and Mexico and idiotic things like running into Stroll after the race ended. And yes Hamilton also had tyre issues in Hungary Q3 a gearbox penalty in Austria, an off in Brazil (showboating too much after he won the title already in Mexico) and setup issues with the poorly understood Mercedes in Russia and Monaco.

            At best you could blame those last two on Hamilton, but that in nowhere compares to all the blundering Vettel did when the going got a little tough (after they lost their oil burning system in Baku).

            Vettel’s poor performance in Singapore and Baku also meant that Ferrari cracked under the pressure of needing more points, which clearly meant they went too far with taking risks on the car side to get more performance from it. Cranking up the performance too high or releasing new parts too soon, to the point that the car started breaking down a lot. So I’d say even those can be attributed partially to Vettel’s blunders.

            He really messed a lot that season. Even more so than in 2009.

            Either way, the point was that in one season Vettel crashed into Hamilton (twice), Stroll, Raikkonen and then Verstappen several times. Clearly that’s not dissimilar to the number of crashes Verstappen has been having lately.

  7. Why only half the info..?? Gridpenalties, DNF’s spins and repairs are costing the team a lot.

    The context should be:
    Aus > Ric gridpenalty 3p/ Ver spun
    Bah > Ric DNF (team) / Ver crash
    Chi > Ric enginefailure FP3 (team) / Ver collide
    AZE > Ric crash / Ver crash
    ESP > Ric crash FP, spun twice / Ver collide
    Mon > Ric damaged MGU (team) / Ver crash FP + gridpenalty 10p (partially team)

    1. How is this partly team?

      Ric damaged MGU (team) / Ver crash FP + gridpenalty 10p (partially team)>

      1. johntodiffer
        1st June 2018, 3:01

        If they’d decided to change the gearbox immediately he probably could have qualified 2nd or 1st.
        Of course the likely scenario would have him in the wall after setting that time, redflagging Q3. The subsequent second gearbox change penalty would start him near the tail so kudos to the team for avoiding that messy situation.

      2. @00tony
        Bc that’s how f-boys like Matn twist reality. The team did MV a favour, yet Matn blames them. They, just like the writer of the article, also do mention the spin(s) (Matn claims a second one) of DR in Esp, but do not mention that in reality it didn’t cost him/the team any points at all.

        PS: Newest excuses for orange fans apparently is putting the blame on RB for not guiding their hero and putting too much pressure on their drivers. All variants of shifting the blame from MV to others.

    2. Horner didn’t blame all 65 points on the drivers – he noted that the team had lost that many, though – and (with the caveat that there’s unknowns around how other things might have changed) I think he’s right.

      It’s also the case, in my view, that Verstappen can shoulder a greater part of the blame for those lost points than the rest of the team combined.

      Agree with @00tony, though – nothing that happened to Verstappen in Monaco was anyone’s fault but his own.

  8. I couldn’t agree more with Horner.

  9. It definitely would have been extremely interesting if Max had been behind Ric when he has his issue in Monaco.

    1. Yes, I belive it would have been something spectecular !!!

  10. So taking into account the points the rivals would have lost if they didn’t have these issues it would be interesting to see what the table would look like (e.g. without Max’s crash in Q3 most likely seb would have been 3rd and Ham 4th)

  11. There’s no threat from behind, and no real opportunity ahead. So isn’t more points only going to cost them more entry next year, yet no bigger piece of the pie on the results of this year as those are decided by spot, not points? Also, if we’re playing the ‘if….then’ game I’m sure Ferrari has some story to tell you too. Mercedes only has Bottas in Baku really.

    1. True, more of an ego comment from Horner in why they too far behind 6 rounds in. And that’s fine he has bosses to please and a job to keep also.

      But what if Bottas didn’t crash in Melbourne or puncture in Baku? What if Kimi was allowed to race? (Not so much the past few races but first few looked so bad- then they make him tell the media they are equal??)

      But despite this I always thought RBR would be 3rd this year. So it’s probably changes nothing up front- and that shows a bigger issue with F1 really.

  12. Usually not a fan or Horner but damn good to see a team principle showing some back bone and putting the pressure on an underperforming driver. Gunther Steiner could learn a few lessons from him.

    1. Not so sure on that, Stiener has felt the need to back Grosjean of late but has really given it to him a few times this year.

  13. Monaco’s race was the turning point for Verstappen. His driving will mature from this point on. Someone finally got into his head because in one of his pre or post race interviews he said something to the effect of: I need to be aware that the same tactics will not work as they did in lower categories because in F1 almost everyone is a great talent and people won’t be easily outfoxed nor give up easily to overtaking manoeuvres.

    It has come a little late in his F1 career but he can only go from strength to strength.

    And I believe Red Bull have learnt from their mistakes too. They are nurturing Verstappen. This is a very different philosophy to the brutal way the treated under-performers in the past.

    1. The problem I see that “low risk”/”mature” Verstappen seems much slower.

      It looks like the prime reason he was faster was because he was taking too much risk. Now he’s also taking less risk, he seems slower than Ricciardo (which makes VER take more risk anyway and put it in the wall again)

      1. I doubt that Max has a ‘much slower’ mode, and after all we have only seen it at Monaco when he knew finishing the race was the most important thing for him to do that day, at a track that does not promote passing anyway.

        I don’t buy that the prime reason Max is faster is from taking more risk. He was usually faster than DR last year and didn’t have all the issues he’s had this year. It’s like he’s just over driving it perhaps to make up for the hp deficit or something like that. But anyway I’m sure Max will still be able to keep his pace and just keep a little cooler head with passing opportunities and the timing of them.

      2. Its funny you say Max was slower than RIC in practice in Monaco. On he time sheets he was yes, but he got in traffic on all his quick laps. Including a red flag situation in his fastest lap.

        The reason he made the mistake was because he got distracted by Sainz not because he was overdriving. It was a stupid mistake and very unnecessary but it had nothing to do with RIC being faster. He wanted to do a qualy run like they all do at the end of P3 and he screwed up.

        1. <> that’s the reason… plain and simple..

          but i think he learned in the race how to drive like a champ.. kept the car on track got to the flag and live to fight another day!

  14. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    31st May 2018, 16:34

    Thinking about it:
    Ricciardo lost minimum 15 points in Bahrain. He could have got another 15 points in Baku (he was going to pass Verstappen, Vettel ran wide and Bottas had a puncture).
    If he hadn’t lost those points, he would be currently 8 points behind Hamilton, and ahead of Vettel. All hypotectical but it shows how different the championship could have looked.

    1. Indeed, several people here are saying red bull can’t challenge ferrari and mercedes, I’d say they have the pace, they lack reliability and one of their driver is making too many mistakes, but the speed is there, every single race they looked at least on par with ferrari except baku.

      1. They also lack qualy speed

      2. Matteo (@m-bagattini)
        1st June 2018, 8:59

        @esploratore @anunaki @vettelfan17 I’m one of those saying RB can’t really fight for the championship because my feeling is that a series of “normal” tracks is coming and the situation should be more stable for the top teams. Also, it looks like RB is the team that on paper will pay more in terms of penalties due to replacements, although this is something that will surely affect also Merc and Ferrari.

        Anyway, my only thought when I read this kind of hypothesis is the old saying we have “if my grandpa had 5 balls he would be a pinball”.

    2. But would Bottas have had that puncture if nor for the SC caused by the red bull crash though? It was caused by debris from the incident with Magnussen at the restart of the race @vettelfan17 . Surely withouth them crashing then Bottas would have just finished in the lead!

  15. Baku was the costliest ever since Ricciardo joined Red Bull.

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