Christian Horner doubled down on Red Bull’s three-stop strategy for Max Verstappen at the 2025 F1 Spanish GP, insisting the team made the right calls until a poorly timed Safety Car sabotaged their chances. Despite Verstappen running in podium contention for most of the race, the late caution left him stranded on hard tyres and exposed to attacks, eventually finishing a lowly tenth after a penalty.
Horner justifies early three-stop commitment
Red Bull recognised early that they could not beat McLaren on equal footing. Horner and his strategy team committed to a three-stop plan by Lap 12, aiming to outmanoeuvre Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris through pit sequencing rather than raw pace.
“Obviously, the way that the race was panning out, we elected to take a 3-stop,” Horner said while speaking to written media after the race. “We committed to it pretty early on because we saw that the pace advantage and the tyre advantage that McLaren had. A straight fight wouldn’t be possible.”
Red Bull, led by Horner, rolled the dice when Verstappen launched on used softs and briefly led the 2025 F1 Spanish GP race. They pitted him early, hoping to shake up the McLarens’ strategy. When McLaren didn’t cover the undercut, Red Bull doubled down on the alternate plan.
“So we committed on Lap 12, I think it was, to the first stop and then Lap 28, 29. And at that point, McLaren were committed to a 2-stop; they didn’t cover us and we were committed to a 3-stop, which actually was playing out as the quicker strategy of the two. There was a chance.”
Despite Verstappen’s strong pace, Red Bull struggled to match McLaren’s tyre longevity. Horner admitted the MCL39s ran a dominant middle stint on mediums that forced Verstappen onto his final set of softs earlier than ideal.
“The problem was our tyre life wasn’t strong enough and that middle stint of McLaren was particularly strong. The only chance we had was a potential undercut that we gave a go with Max [Verstappen] on that last set of tyres, on to his last set of softs.”
Safety Car shatters Red Bull’s strategy
Red Bull’s carefully calculated risk unravelled when Kimi Antonelli retired on Lap 55. The resulting Safety Car caught Verstappen without any optimal tyre options. With his softs and mediums spent, Red Bull faced a tough call. The team assessed their options and chose a fresh set of hard tyres over a worn set of softs that had endured qualifying, installation laps, and the early race stint.
“So he [Verstappen] had used all his softs and medium and then McLaren covered us with both Norris and Piastri.”
“And then the Safety Car came out on [Lap] 55, which is probably the worst possible time in terms of our strategy because you’re faced with then the choice of, do you stay out on an eight-lap-old, heavily-pushed soft tyre, at which point you would get eaten up at the restart. It looked like there would be circa 10 racing laps left.”
“Unfortunately, the only set of tyres that we had available, having gone on to that 3-stop strategy, was a new set of hards. And so our feeling was that a new set of hards was better than an eight-lap-old, heavily-degraded set of softs. So that’s what we did. We took the stop.”
Horner maintains Red Bull stayed competitive through strategy
Horner remained adamant that Verstappen stayed in contention at the 2025 F1 Spanish GP through strategy alone. Without the Safety Car, he believed Verstappen could have at least challenged for track position.
“Right up until that Safety Car, we were a lot closer to the McLarens through strategy than we should’ve been. They should’ve been 20 seconds up the road, maybe more. And through the strategy, it kept us in the hunt.”
Horner praised Red Bull’s execution throughout the race. He noted strong pit stops and a solid strategic flow that nearly gave Verstappen an undercut opportunity late in the race.
“We got a slight chance of an undercut at that last one. I don’t think we would’ve kept it. But we might have got track position. Up until that point, I felt that we’d done everything right. The pit stops had been strong. The strategy had been right.”
“Unfortunately, the Safety Car at that point comes out. You don’t want to sit on that set of tyres because you know everybody else has taken a fresh set, and the only thing that we’ve got left is a new set of hards that you’ve got no real knowledge of.”
No regrets—even with hindsight
Even in retrospect, Horner did not express regret over the tyre choice. He questioned whether Verstappen could have defended against the frontrunners on battered softs if they had left him out.
“With 20-20 hindsight, you would’ve left him [Verstappen] out. He would’ve got passed by the two McLarens. Would he have got passed by Leclerc? It’s all subjective. You never know.
Red Bull did not consider the final set of used softs viable. Horner explained they had already endured qualifying laps, formation laps, and racing miles. The team did not trust those tyres to survive a restart sprint.
Horner accepts the risks of bold strategy
Horner acknowledged the built-in danger of a three-stop approach. By the final quarter of the race, teams have no margin for caution-triggered tyre chaos. He accepted that risk and stood by the team’s call.
“You make the decision with the information you have at hand. As I say, the risk of going onto the 3-stop is that a Safety Car scenario in the last third or quarter of the race exposes you.”
“[Verstappen didn’t change to the final set of used softs] because the initial set had been used. Obviously, it had done qualifying. And then it does all the laps to the grid and does all the race starts. It essentially had, I think, seven or eight laps on it. So you face the choice of a brand new set versus an eight-lap used set that has taken a bit of a pounding.”
“With 20-20 hindsight, it’s very easy to say, stay out. Would he have finished third, fourth? Who knows! But you can only go with the information you have at hand.”
“You expose yourself when you go with a three-stop,” he said. “That’s the gamble. But we made those decisions with the data in front of us.”
Red Bull now turns its attention to the Canadian GP, where Horner hopes for cleaner conditions—and fewer curveballs from the racing gods. But in Barcelona, he believed the strategy worked. The timing didn’t.
