Christian Horner isn’t sure if Lando Norris would have passed couple of cars in F1 Miami GP amid that safety car goof-up.
While McLaren and Norris took the accolades by beating Red Bull and Max Verstappen by over seven seconds in F1 Miami GP, there was some safety car goof-up which could have ended up in a disaster, not for the teams but also for the sport on the whole.
When the safety car was deployed, it seemingly caught Verstappen on the road rather than Norris who was in the net lead. His pit stop created a situation which could have led to a bigger problem but was averted eventually before it spiraled.
But even then, social media did pick up the goof-up where Norris created a larger gap when the Dutchman was stuck behind the safety car. The 11.3s gap before the pit stop where the Brit was unlikely to retain the lead, resulted in a 23s gap.
The safety car did aide Norris, but he eventually out-raced Verstappen on re-start to register his first F1 win. Red Bull chief Horner isn’t sure if the Brit would have passed the Dutchman and or a Ferrari, if he had dropped back behind them.
“Really it should have been Lando, but it was very lucky that it didn’t go a lap ahead of the whole field,” said Horner. “So, thankfully they sorted that out, that was it. I am sure the Race Director had his reasons for sending it out at that point. I think that Lando would not have had track position and then would he have been able to pass?
“I don’t know. At least one Ferrari and Max, it is difficult to say,” summed up Horner, as Norris admitted that it would have been a tough situation had he come out behind in the order. “It would have been tough, I would have had to overtake two Ferraris, a Red Bull, Oscar,” he said. “Oscar was doing a very good job, so hats off to him..”
They wouldn’t have reached this stage had Sergio Perez collected them all at Turn 1 when he locked-up heavy and nearly hit the back of Verstappen. He was close to the Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz as well, who all breathed a sigh of relief.
“His start was optimistic,” said Horner. “Obviously, Charles didn’t have a great start ahead, I think that caused Checo…he had to lift for Charles and then he had a window into the first corner. He went for it, obviously got in very deep and was lucky not to collect Max at the first turn and not to collect the Ferrari coming back onto the track after the first turn.
“So I was pleased to see most cars survive that,” summed up Horner, as Verstappen only saw the moment in the cool down room with a bit of ‘lucky save’ shock on his face. “I was very aware. I mean, I turned in and I saw him lock up. And I looked after the race. There was like a scratch on my diffuser.
“So something must have hit. But yeah, it was very close. Could have ended in a disaster, of course, for the team as well. So yeah, lucky.” Perez, meanwhile, breathed well himself after the scary moment which was due to lack of grip on the inside.
“I had a good start, Charles had a really bad start, but as soon as I brake into the inside there was no grip, like with Lewis in the Sprint,” Perez said. “And offline there was no grip, and I ended up locking. I nearly took Max out. So I had to come off the brake and I lost a position to Oscar.
“It was quite unfortunate, but other than that, I think, we were struggling for some pace today. We just couldn’t manage to get a pace where we needed and, yeah, something that we got to work on to try and understand why, what was the issue.”
Here’s Max Verstappen, Christian Horner on Miami GP loss
Here’s how F1 Miami GP panned out
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