Horner doesn't flatten Hamilton: 'See him in the top 10 at the end of this race"

"I think that it was the only conclusion that the stewards could really come to. We had something very similar in 2012 when we failed a front wing test in Abu Dhabi when we were fighting for a championship and we had to start from the back," Horner dug into his memory for a moment in front of the Sky Sportscamera .

The Red Bull Racing team boss continued by saying Hamilton shouldn't be completely written off for the rest of the weekend, even if he does get a five-place grid penalty on Sunday. "They have an amazing pace and this track you can overtake on. I see him in the top 10 at the end of this race. Tomorrow its going to be hotter again and deg is going to be big factor. You can never rule him out. Particularly here."

However, the Austrian racing team is mainly focusing on itself. "We need to get our heads down and focus on our race. Valtteri has good pace and is going to go for it. We need to extract the maximum we can." For Verstappen, the main task is to keep Bottas behind him during Sunday's sprint race and race.