It was Verstappen himself that found this ‘trick’ and I think Max has proved in other races he is able to manage his tires better. The article does not tell if Ricciardo was not told about this trick. I think when the team found out how Max was doing this, it was already too late for Daniel. Daniel just asked too much from his tires directly after his first pitstop and Max told us in interviews after the race, he was careful with his tires directly after his 1st pitstop (every driver should know this). And also Max driving in front, mostly in ‘clean air’, helped his tires a lot. Daniel tires took a bigger hit, because he was driving in ‘dirty air’.https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-reveals-tactic-that-helped-verstappen-win-1054411/
One just have to wonder...
why couldn't a team tell the other driver about that same trick ? One driver is using it, so don't you want as a team safe 1-2 ?? Or you want that your other driver have to go for new tires and drop THREE places ?
Another favoritism of one driver ?
Nah... they just been caught off guard. Like Merc with Ham.
But after that
"just let him go mate", "NO!", "okie doki, never mind, do it your way"
beautiful team love story.... who knows.
Dan, I really hope hope you have some other options... srcew this (biased) crew.
Anything ...but McLaren.
And about this ‘tow’ and Max saying NO, that has been explained in several interviews as well. It is an agreement between both drivers and the team, and Daniel was the one who wanted to break this agreement. This has nothing to do with the team favoring Max over Daniel. Next race the sutuation will be reversed.
I hope Daniel stays with RB, since I think Max and Daniel bring out the best in each other. Both are great drivers and could be future WC’s at RB. But all will depend on future engines.
