Horner: Season is a 'challenge'

Red Bull's Christian Horner admits trying to get on top of strategy this year remains "complex" - but denies the outcome of races is a lottery.

The result of last week's Canadian Grand Prix again came down to who mastered Pirelli's tyres the best with teams faced with the conundrum of either one or two stopping during the course of the 70-lap race.

Red Bull, along with Ferrari, attempted to beat McLaren's Lewis Hamilton to race victory by not pitting for a second time but the strategy backfired as the two teams' respective star drivers Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso ran out of tyre life with a handful of laps to go.

Horner, whose Red Bull team ultimately did opt to pit Vettel for a second time and as a result of which still salvaged fourth place having earlier run third, says the team have a lot of analysis to carry out before the next race in the wake of more unpredictable results.

"It was a difficult race, and we've quite a few things to reflect on and try to understand," said RBR's team principal.

"Ultimately we salvaged some reasonable points, beating Fernando.

"It was a very difficult strategic race. Things are complex (at the moment), that's for sure. Strategically it's very difficult to read.

"You are trying to make judgements through a race based on the feedback you have from your own car and the information you have around you, and it's tricky.

"Two guys that went on a one stop, one started 15th (Sergio Perez for Sauber) and the other at the back end of the top 10 (Lotus' Romain Grosjean) and they came out third and second.

"We qualified on pole, were in the lead on lap 15, yet ran into trouble seven laps before the end."

Although the start of the 2012 season has witnessed a record seven different winners in seven races, some critics have argued that the sport has actually now become too unpredictable amid teams' ongoing difficulties to fully get to grips with Pirelli's latest brand of tyres.

Horner, however, stopped short of agreeing with that particular view, saying: "I think (the word) lottery is too harsh, but I would say it's certainly challenging."