In the wake of last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, fans and pundits have heralded Mercedes’ ability to execute a ‘double stacking’ pitstop.
The team brought both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in for fresh tyres and porridge at the same time, without negatively impacting on Valtteri’s race anymore than they usually do.
But after the race, Red Bull’s Christian Horner was quick to point out his team are the original double stackers – pointing to last year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“PLEASE” Team Principal Christian Horner SAID.
After going toe-to-toe for most of the afternoon, then Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo drove right up the back of teammate Max Verstappen, causing both to crash out of the race.
“It’s a high risk strategy” Team Principal Christian Horner told us.
“When you let them fight out on track, and then one drives right up the rear of the other one, there’s a high risk it will end well”
“But we executed it perfectly” Horner said.
“Both cars out of the race and out of the points in an instant”
“We practice pretty hard for these sort of scenarios, but we couldn’t be happier with how it played out that afternoon” Horner confirmed.
Back in Baku for round 4, Horner insisted the team is still hungry to repeat last year’s efforts.
“We’ve worked hard over the Winter to make sure we can throw away the race again” Horner confirmed.
“It’s hard with Daniel leaving and bringing in a driver that doesn’t hate Max, yet”
“Pierre doesn’t want to crash into him” Dr Helmut Marko sighed.
“Fortunately he’s never anywhere near him on track” Marko observed.
“You can run up the back of someone you’re 35 seconds behind” Horner rightly pointed out.
