Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has heaped praise upon his two drivers following today’s German Grand Prix, believing that they could not have done any better than their finishing positions of fourth and sixth at Hockenheim.
Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel had started the race from fifth and sixth place respectively, and both enjoyed some great on-track battles with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso who eventually split them come the checkered flag. Vettel managed to finish his home race in fourth place, whilst Ricciardo fought back from a first corner incident to finish sixth.
“Fourth and sixth were the absolute maximum we could achieve out of today, especially after the first corner when Daniel did an amazing job to avoid the accident,” Horner explained after the race. “There was some great racing with Sebastian and Fernando early in the race and he was really our main competitor today.
“Our strategy worked out that we were able to beat him in the end reasonably comfortably with Sebastian and Daniel came close as well after recovering extremely well and fighting hard with some more great racing towards the end. It was an exciting grand prix – there’s still a big gap to Mercedes but we’re working hard to try and close it down.”
Vettel and Ricciardo both spoke about the fun they had racing, with the German driver particularly enjoying his fight with Alonso for the second race in a row.
“It was fun with Fernando today,” Vettel said. “We started maybe where we left off in Silverstone! It was quite entertaining the first half of the race and at one point it was quite tight with both the Ferraris, but we managed to stay ahead.”
Ricciardo was also buoyant after the race despite finishing sixth, saying: “These are the moments and battles that I personally thrive off and enjoy. Fernando is known to be a tough racer and I thought who better to have a good fight with. I was on the primes and he was on fresher options and I gave it the best fight I could.”
