Christian Horner knew that Red Bull Racing would have to try something different this weekend in order to make it difficult for Mercedes during the Austrian Grand Prix. That's why the team boss decided to send Max Verstappen out on the medium tyres in Q2.
After setting a tight first lap which put him eighth the Dutchman managed to move himself up into sixth place.
"Our strategist had calculated that Verstappen had to drive a 1:04,100 to stay in," Horner said as quoted by Speedweek.com.
"We just wanted to be able to do something strategically different from Mercedes. That's also because we can't quite keep up with Mercedes in terms of pure speed on one lap. Maybe the cards were shuffled a little differently during the long runs."
In the end, Verstappen was more than half a second short on Saturday afternoon to keep Valtteri Bottas from pole position. According to the eight-time Grand Prix winner, there should be more chances on Sunday than today.