(Reuters) – Max Verstappen’s final pitstop to secure the fastest lap at Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix was a risky but fitting tribute to Red Bull’s late owner Dietrich Mateschitz, said team boss Christian Horner.
Verstappen was leading by some 23 seconds when he came in for soft tyres on the penultimate lap in a bid to take the bonus point from team mate Sergio Perez, a move that could have backfired badly had anything gone wrong.
As it turned out, the Red Bull pit crew performed impeccably and Verstappen returned to the track with a three second advantage over the chasing Ferraris.
The double world champion bagged the bonus with his fifth win in a row that sent him 81 points clear of Perez at the top and also maintained Red Bull’s run of nine out of nine for the season.
“He was pushing us about that pitstop,” Horner told Sky Sports television of the conversation with Verstappen. “You could tell he wanted that soft set of tyres.
“It was like ‘OK, no risk no fun’. That was what Dietrich always said and the mechanics have been on such great form in the pits today it was a very low risk thing to do.”
Sunday’s race at Spielberg’s Red Bull Ring was the first since the death of Mateschitz last October.
“He was our leader, founder, he created all of this,” said Horner. “He was Red Bull and despite him not being here in presence, you feel his spirit here.
“He would have enjoyed that one.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Toby Davis)
