Christian Horner has given his reaction to Max Verstappen's angry radio messages regarding his out laps during the Bahrain Grand Prix. When making his first pit-stop of the race on Lap 13, the Red Bull driver was instructed by his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to "not hit these tyres hard" as he returned to the track. Similarly, at his second stop on Lap 29, Lambiase - known to many as GP - told Verstappen: "You have to bring these tyres in gently this stint please, Max." Verstappen was left frustrated after being unable to overtake Charles Leclerc after his stop on both occasions, and did not hold back from voicing his anger about this. "Okay, this is now two times that I take it easy on the out lap that when I could have easily been in front. I’m never, ever doing it again," the Dutchman said over the radio.
Horner: Ferrari would still have overtaken
Horner acknowledges that Verstappen feels he could have gotten closer to Leclerc with a faster out lap, but the team boss still believes that the Ferrari would have been able to get back in front again, with the Italian outfit going on to win the race. "I think it's always a fine margin," Horner told Sky Sports F1 . "He [Verstappen] felt that he could have done more, and I think that, combined with a slightly quicker stop, but then the Ferrari had put us very, very close to them. "But, even if we'd have made the pass, I think their pace was such that - with overtaking being a little bit easier now - they would have just overtaken. They just had a quicker car today, so congrats to them on their 1-2 finish."
Zero points in Bahrain "tough" for Red Bull
Verstappen eventually retired from the race in the latter stages, with teammate Sergio Perez also recording a DNF soon afterwards. Horner admits that this was difficult for the team, but feels that there are many positives they can take away from Bahrain. "Zero points for us is tough," he explained. "I think the positive we can take is we've had a competitive car. We were fighting for the race win at different points of that race, and we've got to get on top of these issues quickly. "It's a long, long season, 23 races. We'll get this behind us, [and] get stuck into the next event."
Verstappen: I've been angrier before!
Meanwhile, Verstappen says that his frustration over the radio was simply a reflection of him not being afraid to speak his mind about the car. "I've been angrier before!" the Dutchman joked when asked about the messages. He added: "I don't hold back, I say what I think in the car, and I was unhappy with what we were doing or the balance of the car I had with the strategy. "It was not necessarily directly to GP, because I have a really good relationship with him, but of course he's the only one I can talk to. But yeah, we have to analyse quite a few things."
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