Christian Horner claimed Max Verstappen was denied a "slam dunk" win at the British Grand Prix by the piece of stray debris which ruined his race.
Verstappen started in second place, and on Lap 10 overtook pole-sitter Carlos Sainz to lead the race. But the Red Bull delight did not last for long, as it soon became apparent that the Dutchman was struggling with a problem.
The defending champion ran over some debris, and clearly lost performance as he was overtaken by both Ferraris before he dove into the pits for fresh tyres. He had assumed it was a puncture, but further analysis revealed it was a bodywork issue affecting downforce, as Verstappen declared the car was "100% broken".
He later launched into an expletive-laden rant over team radio following another pit stop, as he struggled to warm up his new tyres and was passed by Sebastian Vettel with ease. "I don't know why the f**k you put me on these tyres, given the damage," he yelled, before adding that he was "driving like I'm on ice".
In the end, he was a long way off the fight for the podium and was forced to settle for seventh place after successfully defending against the Haas of Mick Schumacher. Horner felt his star driver would have won the race with ease had it not been for that stray piece of carbon.
"I haven't seen the debris yet, there was so much going on, a bit of debris out there and unfortunately really unlucky for Max, because I think he would have been a slam dunk today," he told Sky Sports F1. "But it was a great race. It was an exciting race."
Explaining the decision to fit hard tyres to Verstappen's Red Bull, the decision which sparked that furious outburst from the driver, Horner added: "The race suddenly changed, we're suddenly racing Vettel and Schumacher and guys that we're not usually around, so it was a matter of then adapting to 'right, okay, what's our fastest route to the end of the race? We've got to cover those guys'.
So we went onto the hard [tyre] and the plan was to go to the end of the race, and then the safety car came out and it was like 'well Max is really struggling out there, chuck a set of softs on and let's see what we can do'. And he made a couple of passes and a great restart and P7 was probably the hardest P7 he's ever fought for."
