F1 News: Christian Horner Shuts Down Nico Rosberg's Critique of Sergio Perez

Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner defends Sergio Perez's performance at the Spanish Grand Prix with a sharp exchange with Nico Rosberg during a post-race interview.

In the aftermath of the Spanish Grand Prix, Red Bull chief Christian Horner was swift to respond to Nico Rosberg's critique during his post-race interview with Sky Sports F1. Despite a rough start from P11 due to an early elimination in Barcelona's qualifying round, Sergio Perez successfully drove his way up to fourth place, earning admiration for his resilience. For the pundit didn't hold back from pouncing on the difference in pace between the Mexican driver and his teammate Max Verstappen.

Perez nearly made it to the podium celebration, but his intense on-track battle with Mercedes' George Russell resulted in a close miss. Russell, maintaining his third position, reinforced Mercedes' successful weekend behind Lewis Hamilton who came second.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by F1Briefings (@f1briefings_)

When asked about his thoughts on the race, Horner seemed to take issue with Rosberg's probing. The former F1 champion suggested that Perez's initial laps in the 66-lap race were subpar.

"You were just saying he did a good race but I thought it was quite a lack of performance, especially during the early part of the race. Isn't that true? I mean, comparing to Max there were some laps where there was quite a gap."

Horner, trying to deflect this probing from the former F1 driver, responded with a subtle jab at Rosberg. Looking straight at Rosberg, the Red Bull principal retorted: 

"You're a critical kind of guy, aren't you? You're tough on these guys. Now you're out of the car you have to criticise all the guys."

He continued:

"I think that he [Perez] lost out in the early laps and didn't have a great start. George managed to get away with running off the track and not getting any penalty for that and I think that was the difference at the end of the day.

"Checo's race was getting stronger and stronger and that last stint in particular, he was really coming back very strong, but just not enough laps to fight for the podium."

Perez clearly wasn't happy with his performance over the weekend, admitting that his role on the Sunday was damage control:

"If we wanted more then we should have taken a risk like George did, for example, but that would have been difficult.

"We did minimise the damage a bit. I generally felt like we were not quite there this weekend.

"Hopefully, it's something we can solve before Canada. We operate in such a small window that we need to be perfect to have strong pace."