Christian Horner claims Red Bull were 'completely screwed' at Singapore GP
Christian Horner lamented his team's bad luck as Red Bull were "completely screwed" by the timing of the safety car during the Singapore Grand Prix.
It was always likely to make an appearance, given no Singapore Formula 1 race has ever gone by without the need for a safety car. And it duly arrived on lap 20 of Sunday's Grand Prix when Logan Sargeant broke his front wing, leaving pieces of debris strewn across the Marina Bay Circuit.
Red Bull were already at a heavy disadvantage. Their RB19 cars, so dominant this year, simply would not take to the Singapore track and struggled throughout the weekend. Max Verstappen could qualify only 11th while Sergio Perez was two places further back at the start.
Both went on to finish in the points with race pace better on Sunday, Verstappen fifth and Perez eighth. But, even then, they were hampered by the timing of that safety car which forced Red Bull, who ideally needed it to make an appearance either very early or very late, to carry on on their old hard tyres.
Reflecting on how the race had panned out, team principal Horner suggested the safety car had limited what his drivers could do. "I think we understood a lot more in the race and the pace of the car came much more back to what we expected," he told reporters.
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"Coming here we expected to have closer competition. But I think it took us a bit by surprise just how far out we were on Friday. And I think that we were just not in the right operating window for the car, particularly over a single lap, and when you're not there then the tyres feel horrible, everything just doesn't work.
"So I think we got a very good steer in the race, I think that we saw, particularly in the latter stint, that Max's pace was very, very strong. Unfortunately in the race, by starting on the hard, we took if you like a strategic gamble and the best way of that race paying us off is if you get an early safety car or a safety car later into the race.
"Now, the lap that the safety car came out in was probably strategically the worst possible lap for the strategy that we were on, because it gave the cars ahead of us a free stop. At the same time, whilst giving us track position, it made us take the restart with tyres that are very hard to heat up again, having done well over 20 laps. The safety car completely screwed it for us.
"So then Max was obviously picked off by the guys that have had the free stop and then we had to take a pit stop under normal racing conditions, which then drops you another 23 seconds behind with that. So all considered, the recovery that we had, and the pace that we had, particularly in the latter part of the race to be 0.2 [seconds] behind Charles [Leclerc] at the finish line was a very strong race."
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