Christian Horner admits Red Bull left ‘spooked’ by significant F1 concern

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has stated his squad “spooked itself” during the Chinese Grand Prix event.

The Shanghai International Circuit hosted the second round of the F1 season at the weekend, while it also marked the first occurrence of the sprint format this season.

The shorter race on Saturday saw most of the field suffer from significant tyre wear - including Max Verstappen at Red Bull.

Verstappen had little pace to fight with towards the end of the race but held on to take third on the road before the team made changes to improve tyre degradation for the grand prix.

However, the circumstances played out much differently in the main race as a one-stop strategy was the fastest route to the chequered flag.

“He was fighting to take the lead in the first half of the sprint race, and then we degged badly, which affected how we then approached it [the grand prix],” Horner told media, including RacingNews365, at the end of the weekend.

“We made some changes to the car, [and] we definitely improved the deg for the race.

“But I think we spooked ourselves slightly with the level of deg that we had in the first stint.

“We had a plan going into the race to manage that and then it transpired that it was a completely different scenario.

“I can't believe any team in the pit lane thought it was going to be a one-stop going into that race based on what we saw [in the sprint]. In the end, it was very comfortable.”

Round three of the season takes place in Japan where Red Bull will seek to take its first win of the campaign.

It has proven a strong circuit for Red Bull in recent years with Verstappen targeting his fourth consecutive win at the track.

When asked how he expects Red Bull to fare at Suzuka, Horner replied: “Who knows? 

“It depends on what the others are doing. We know the areas that we're working on.

“We'll keep looking to bring performance to the car, and we'll find out in two weeks.”