Christian Horner highlights McLaren 'conflict' after 'world of pain'

Christian Horner pointed out how McLaren subjected Oscar Piastri to a "world of pain" during the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

However, the Red Bull team principal also had some words of praise for the Woking-based team, remarking how "commendable" it was to let Lando Norris race the Australian driver, despite the dangers facing the team.

Whilst reviewing Max Verstappen's victory at Imola, the Briton talked through the pitfalls of McLaren's two-stop strategy, which saw Piastri dropped down the order and into traffic, nullifying any advantage of having fresher rubber.

"Oscar had obviously pushed quite hard early on, and you could see he was starting to get a little bit of graining on that front right [tyre]," Horner told media including RacingNews365. "And so it was borderline whether it was going to be a two stop or one stop.

"They obviously pulled the trigger on the two stop, but it drops you out into - because of the length of the pit lane here being 27 seconds... 

"It put him into a world of pain, traffic-wise. And so Max was then able to keep running and and the deg [degradation] was super low.

"Even with Lando in clean air behind, we were able to manage - quite easily - a nine, nine-and-a-half second gap."

Horner: 'At some point, self interest will always outweigh team interest...'

Even with the virtual and full safety car interruptions, McLaren's strategy for Piastri left the six-time grand prix winner powerless to fight Verstappen - and eventually his own team-mate.

The Papaya team allowed its drivers to fight, part of its 'two number one' stance. However, Horner underlined the inherent "conflict" facing the team, despite Norris getting past with both remaining unscathed. 

"The VSC came out, the pit stop was pretty straightforward, then, of course, Oscar pitted again on his strategy, which sort of neutralised things," the 51-year-old explained.

"But by that time, he'd use both of his hard tyres, and then that final safety car: Max pitted, Lando pitted, but it dropped him behind Oscar, which was... you've got two drivers that are fighting for a world championship.

"At some point, self interest will always outweigh team interest - that's the conflict. So they did a good job to not make contact.

"It was commendable that they were allowed to race, but you could see it got pretty close."