Horner confident luck will “balance itself out” in second half of 2021 F1 season

Max Verstappen and Red Bull surrendered the lead of both championships after a disappointing Hungarian Grand Prix.

Verstappen sustained damage on the opening lap at the Hungaroring, while Sergio Perez was forced to retire on the opening lap following Valtteri Bottas’ misjudgement into Turn 1 where he hit the back of Lando Norris.

The Dutchman was 44 points clear of Lewis Hamilton after a hat-trick of wins in France, Styria and Austria.

Lap 1 incidents at the British Grand Prix and then Hungary have put the seven-time world champion top of the standings going into the summer break.

“At no point do we feel that [we've been] absolutely in control,” he said. “We’ve won six races in the first half of the year. The races we haven’t scored at: Azerbaijan wasn’t Max’s fault [a tyre problem put him out late on while leading], Silverstone wasn’t Max’s fault, here [Hungary] wasn’t Max’s fault, so our luck will change.

“Over the length of a season it will balance itself out and I look forward to the second half of the year. The whole team deserves a well-earned break, the drivers will get some time off and believe you me we’ll come out fighting in the second half of the championship so yes, it’s going to be interesting.”

Verstappen and Perez’s respective crashes in the last two races caused significant damage to their Honda power units, meaning Red Bull is likely going to be forced to take new parts and thus exceed the allocated limit for a season, resulting in grid penalties.

“We’ve had some hugely bad luck in the last couple of races, it’s been pretty brutal in parts, in damage, in engines, but you know we’ll brush ourselves down and we’ll come out fighting in the second half of the championship,” Horner added.

“Obviously it’s been a tough couple of weekends but things can turn around very quickly as you’ve just seen, and there’s a long way to go in this championship.”