04 April 2023 , 18:52
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Christian Horner believes Max Verstappen was able to win the Australian Grand Prix with help from a "mistake" made by Lewis Hamilton early in the race.
Verstappen secured his second win of the season and Red Bull's third, further extending their advantage at the top of the championship. But this one wasn't quite as straightforward as the previous two for the defending champions, thanks to several safety car periods and red flags.
Plus, the Dutchman was made to work for the lead in the early stages. He started on pole but did not get the launch he would have wanted, and George Russell was able to move past at the first corner, shortly before Hamilton also got the better of his old rival.
It wasn't until after the first stoppage that Verstappen wrestled control of the race back. Russell had pitted just before the red flag so had dropped to seventh, while Hamilton was powerless to defend against the pace of the Red Bull when DRS was enabled on lap 12.
"First of all, I think Lewis made a mistake on that lap," said Horner after the race. "Moreover, we had completely set up the car for the race. Maybe Hamilton heated up his tires a little too aggressively, so he suffered a bit more in the race."
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Meanwhile, the team chief also responded to a claim from Hamilton's Mercedes team-mate that Red Bull are not showing their true pace. Russell expressed his belief that the champions are sandbagging in order to prevent the FIA from getting involved in the title race.
Christian Horner thinks Max Verstappen was helped by a Lewis Hamilton mistake in Melbourne (Hasan Bratic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)"For sure they're holding back," he told the BBC Chequered Flag podcast. "I think they are almost embarrassed to show their full potential because the faster they seem, the more that the sport is going to try to hold them back somehow.
"I think realistically they probably have seven-tenths advantage over the rest of the field. I don't know what the pace difference looks like at the moment but Max has got no reason to be pushing it, nor has Red Bull. They've done a really great job to be fair to them. We can'ttake thataway, and we clearly have to up our game."
Horner said of Russell's theory: ""That's very generous of him! His team would know too well about those kinds of advantages. There's always an element of managing that goes on in any race. Because it was a one-stop race, and a very early one-stop race, of course there was an element of tyre management going on."