14/11/2021
NEWS STORY
As Lewis Hamilton storms through the field to claim fifth, Christian Horner admits to finding the Briton's speed "mind-boggling".
Whatever one's view on his disqualification from Friday's qualifying results, few would argue that Lewis Hamilton's fight back through the field from last to fifth was one of the highlights of the season.
Clearly fired up by the ruling, not to mention that little matter of an eighth world championship, Hamilton began his afternoon by picking off the backmarkers, before making his way by the more established drivers including a couple of fellow world champions.
There were no complaints of "lack of grip" or "dirty air" as the seven time world champion went about his business, rounding off his performance with the threat that "this is not over".
However, speaking shortly after the Sprint, Red Bull boss, Christian Horner admitted to finding Hamilton's sheer speed "mind-boggling", and, without actually saying it, questionable.
"Lewis' straight-line speed is just mind-boggling," he told Sky Sports. "We've seen this coming for a few races now. In Turkey it started to be there, in Mexico, we saw the straight-line speed, I think they were about 14 km/h quicker at the end of the straight than we were, so it's no great surprise.
"We saw yesterday that it's phenomenal," he added, "especially with the size of the rear wing that they have on the car."
Revealing that the team's design guru, Adrian Newey had spoken with the Interlagos stewards, Horner said: "It's something that is enabling the car to do that kind of speed. Something must happen, because physics wouldn't allow...
"The kind of horsepower delta that you would need to achieve that, would be pretty significant," he continued. "So we're obviously trying to understand what it is and go from there.
"It's down to the FIA to police," said Horner. "The rules are quite concise, they're ever more constricted.
"It's something that we're going to keep an eye on because, particularly with Lewis today, that was just a different league. I think he was 27 km/h faster than Lando when he passed him, which is another formula, but it's a great drive from him."
Meanwhile, explaining why he had examined Hamilton's rear wing on Friday, a move which was to cost him 50,000 euros, Max Verstappen poured more fuel on an already smouldering fire.
"You can see on the video what I did exactly," said the youngster. "I was just looking at how much the rear wing was flexing at that point.
"Of course, there have been talks," he continued, "and of course there are things to still look into, because at a certain speed it seems like the wing is flexing.
"You know we had, at the beginning of the season, to change the rear wings a bit because of the back off," he added, referring to movement of the Red Bull's rear wing at high speed. "But it seems like something is still backing off over there. So that's why I went and had a look."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Interlagos, here.