Christian Horner has defended his overreaction towards Yuki Tsunoda, and said that although he was wrong, his statements were blown out of proportion.
Red Bull was furious with what happened during the Mexican GP qualifying session. There, Tsunoda went off the track after making a mistake. The two Red Bull cars behind him subsequently took their eyes off the track and failed to set a fastest time.
At the time, the Red Bull Team Principal ripped into the Japanese rookie, suggesting his team “was Tsunoda’d”. He received heavy criticism from fans for his words, and soon backtracked on them.
However, Horner defended his overreaction towards Tsunoda, and said that he said in the heat of the moment.
“I think the problem, if you look into into the context of what is said, these things, unfortunately social media has a habit of picking on certain lines and then exploiting them,” he said, as quoted by RaceFans.
“It is important that you can still… it’d be a pretty boring world if you’re unable to comment on the performance of a driver.
“I think having had a chance to consider it, I think in fairness to Yuki, perhaps he could have been helped a bit more with more information.
“The outcome was unfortunate, particularly as he was only there to give a tow for his team mate. But it is what it is. In the end, it worked out okay – starting on the second row worked out fine for us today.”
Hindsight
Horner also expressed his relief with the result on Sunday, and gave his thoughts on the explosive start.
“As it transpired, being on the second row was actually probably the best place to be starting this race,” he continued.
“I thought Valtteri (Bottas) was fair into turn one, he allowed Max (Verstappen) enough space, which is the rule on the way down to turn 1.
“Max made the best use of it, braked incredibly late, almost took the standard racing line into there and was able to take the lead.”
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