Christian Horner appears to have contradicted Sergio Perez's take on the fastest lap situation in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Race winner Perez has called for Red Bull to review the process they used after claiming that he received "different information" over whether he could push for the quickest lap, with teammate Max Verstappen – who finished the race in P2 – ultimately claiming the accolade. This means that Verstappen clinched an extra point at Jeddah, which gives him a one-point lead over Perez at the top of the World Championship standings. Horner has given his take on what happened, and seemed to give a different version of events to Perez.
Horner: Both drivers had the information
"I think we came to the conclusion that it [was] the last lap. If he's going to go, he's going to go," Horner said of Verstappen to media, including RacingNews365.com . "I think he'd already come to that conclusion himself. Both drivers had the info. "Checo had the fastest lap at that point, he asked what it was, so it was obvious why he was asking. "He knew that Max was going to have a crack at it, and Checo gave it up after the first couple of turns. He was already a tenth and a half down, and then you saw him back out of it."
Conversations over pace
There was much discussion in the final laps of the race for Verstappen and Perez with their respective engineers, with Perez later suggesting that he was told to "keep the pace". However, Horner says that managing pace was only required when the team faced some concerns over a possible driveshaft issue, which had earlier caused Verstappen's problems in qualifying on Saturday. "The only debate about managing pace was when the issue with the driveshaft became prevalent," Horner commented. "At that point, we [thought], 'Okay, let's turn down both cars'. But as soon as it became clear that we couldn't see anything in the data, we released the cars again."
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