Christian Horner has revealed how he shouted at Max Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to order the World Champion to pit in the Dutch Grand Prix. Verstappen was leading his home race in the closing laps, but a burst of heavy rain led to a red flag after Zhou Guanyu aquaplaned off the track at Turn 1. The Red Bull driver was initially hesitant to pit for a change from the dry slick tyres to Intermediates with his run of nine straight wins potentially under threat. On Lap 62, Lambiase informed Verstappen "now would be a good time to pit" owing to the worsening conditions, with the World Champion diving for the pits at the end of the lap. After Verstappen equalled Sebastian Vettel's all-time record of nine straight wins, Horner spoke of how he was shouting at Lambiase to get Verstappen in.
Horner's shouting
"We were a bit unsure of what was going to happen with the weather," Horner told media including RacingNews365. "[We were wondering whether] it was a few spots [of rain], was it going to blow through? "In the end, I was shouting at GP: 'Get him in!'" The Red Bull boss also addressed Red Bull's strategy earlier in the race after the first rain shower and the switch back to slick tyres from Intermediates. At this stage of the race, Sergio Perez was leading from Verstappen, with the race-leader usually the driver given the preferential strategy. However, Verstappen was able to undercut Perez by being brought in one lap earlier, with Horner explaining it was to protect a one-two for the team. "At one point, [Verstappen] took seven seconds out of [Perez] in three laps, and was coming very, very fast," Horner explained. "Then you get to that awkward point of the crossover, and [Fernando] Alonso and [Zhou Guanyu] were behind him and had pulled the trigger and pitted. "You could see from [Alexander] Albon suddenly the circuit was coming alive for slicks, so had we pitted Checo first, they would have both undercut Max. "So we would have gone from a net one-two to a net one-four. "We pitted Max first, with the risk being that he'd undercut Checo, but we'd end up with first and second as a team, so it was a no-brainer."
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