Horner – team orders “absolutely the right thing to do” for Red Bull Racing

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has defended his team’s use of team orders in Spain.

Red Bull Racing managed to secure a 1-2 at the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix following a long battle with the Mercedes of George Russell.

But with split strategies, and two drivers hungry for victory at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, it was forced to deploy team 0rders throughout the race in favor of Max Verstappen to secure the win.

Horner has said that the team orders were necessary, telling Sky Sports F1:

“Our responsibility is to bring the cars home with as many points as we can, and of course, what Checo [Perez] couldn’t see at the time, which I think he’d see perfectly well now, is that he had such a long stint to do on that medium tyre.

“Max had such a tyre advantage, from a team perspective there’s just no point in that risk, with an intermittent DRS, with temperatures raging up and down.

“It was absolutely the right thing to do.”

Red Bull now lead both championships, with Verstappen jumping title rival Charles Leclerc in the driver’s championship whilst Ferrari drop to second in the constructor’s fight.

Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt