F1
Nate Saunders, General Editor, F1 7y

Christian Horner 'surprised' by Ferrari's Suzuka strategy calls

Red Bull boss Christian Horner admits he was surprised with the way Ferrari threw away the chance of a podium with Sebastian Vettel's strategy in Japan.

Vettel was running third behind Max Verstappen and ahead of Lewis Hamilton when Ferrari decided to extend his penultimate stint, before switching to soft tyres. However, that sacrificed track position to Hamilton and, despite a few laps challenging the world champion, Vettel's tyres soon faded and he had to settle for fourth.

Horner thinks Ferrari sacrificed a strong position by putting Vettel on the softest compound at the end of the race.  

"We toyed with that because once you have been undercut, then you have to try something different. So we went longer, but the tyres were dropping off at a point where we didn't think we could get to the end on the soft.

"So it was a question of again going on the hard. But what really surprised us was Sebastian going onto the soft tyre when he was in the position of reasonable strength around Max with 19 laps to go. That surprised us quite a bit."

Horner believes the decision was especially baffling as Ferrari had looked stronger on raw pace.

"I think pace-wise this weekend they were strong, arguably slightly stronger than us. This track you are at full-throttle longer, it's one of the higher engine dependant circuits so I was delighted that we could convert our grid positions into positive points and I think strategically we were stronger as well.

"We made the most of the position we had with Max, he drove a very mature race and we expected, had Ferrari stopped a lap later, for them to be putting Max under pressure at the end of the race. But they chose a different route and in the end assisted Lewis and the pressure came from Lewis rather than Seb."

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