Horner lenient on Perez after Mexico drama: 'Race incident'

For Red Bull Racing, the Mexican Grand Prix was one with two faces. Max Verstappen won for the fourth time in a row, but Sergio Perez crashed out after just one lap at 'his' Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

"It was a great shame to lose Checo," Horner told Viaplay. "He got a great start and a good run down to Turn 1. I think you've got to call it a racing accident, three into one never goes and Checo was squeezing, Charles had nowhere to go and contact was unfortunately made and that was it, it was just too much damage. The boys did their best to get it turned around, but no chance, unfortunately."

Verstappen recovers it

Verstappen drove to victory without any problems and had just under 14 seconds left after 71 laps. Yet it was not as easy as it looked, as halfway through Verstappen saw his built-up lead disappear like snow in the sun after Kevin Magnussen crashed. What followed was a standing start and thus big danger for the 26-year-old Dutchman to lose the lead.

"Yes, [that red flag came] at the worst time. The good thing was we had a fresh set of tyres. The bad thing was that it was just off our strategy, so it just totally neutralized our race. The good thing for us was that Charles took the same hard tyre for the start because we were concerned he'd take the medium, but thereafter Max had it totally under control," Horner explained.