Horner: Mercedes could've won but we're sandbagging? Ok!

George Russell qualified 0.236s behind Max Verstappen, while many expected the reigning Formula 1 Champion's advantage over the field to be over half a second, while in the race, the gap between the #1 RB19 and Lewis Hamilton in second was in the the range of 10-12s most of the most of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix.

In the end the race finished after the Safety Car after a flurry of incidents and Red Flags, and while speaking to the media, Christian Horner was asked about Russell's claims Red Bull are sandbagging, an accusation previously reserved to Mercedes in their dominant days between 2014 and 2020.

"They could have won it but we’re sandbagging? Okay," Horner sarcastically responded when asked about Russell's claims, who also stated Mercedes where within a shot of winning the race had he not retired with a flaming car.

"That’s very generous of George," he went on. "I mean, his team would know all too well about those kinds of advantages.

"There’s always an element of managing that goes on in any race, you could see because it was a one stop race and a very early one stop race, there was an element of tyre management that was going on, which is what they were doing.

"Checo wasn’t hanging about, he wasn’t cruising round holding back seven tenths a lap because he didn’t want to show it. The grid was certainly a little bit closer at this venue," the Briton added, referring to his Mexican driver's start from the pitlane after his qualifying woes.

Explaining the smaller gap between Verstappen and his rivals in qualifying, Horner said: "I think that when things settle down, I think Lewis made a mistake on that lap, but we’ve obviously weighted the car towards the race rather than qualifying.

"You can see perhaps the cars that warmed up their tyres more aggressively perhaps suffered a bit more in the race today," he pointed out.

"Very much so," was the Red Bull boss' response for the gaps being track specific. "This is a very difficult track to overtake at, and you could see I don’t think there were that many overtakes going on up and down the field.

"Max made a pass for the lead and Sergio Perez obviously made great progress from last on the grid. This circuit, even with its DRS zones is notoriously hard to pass at," Horner insisted.

(Additional reporting by Agnes Carlier)