Christian Horner reveals F1 boss asked Red Bull ‘to slow down’ before losing ‘benchmark’ car status

Christian Horner said Red Bull have gone from being asked to “slow down” by Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali to McLaren being the clear “benchmark” team.

Red Bull , fresh from winning 21 of 22 races last season, started F1 2024 in dominant fashion as Max Verstappen flew into another World Championship lead, but they have since been reeled in and overtaken in the competitive order by McLaren .

Christian Horner: McLaren setting new ‘benchmark’ in Formula 1

Additional reporting by Sam Cooper

McLaren’s Lando Norris beat Verstappen by 22.8 seconds in front of his home crowd at Zandvoort at the weekend, Norris showing Verstappen-esque dominance of his own in the MCL38 as Red Bull struggled to keep pace.

Having started the season with the RB20 as the dominant car, McLaren has gradually pulled the gap back to Red Bull before establishing a competitive advantage – but Verstappen still holds a 70-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship, while Red Bull still lead the Constructors’ standings.

That turnaround, Horner believes, is a sign of how things can change in Formula 1.

“It just shows that things can move very quickly,” Horner told media including PlanetF1.com.

“I mean, we were winning races by 20, 25, seconds, and Stefano was asking us to slow down in the first five races. And then it can change very quickly, and that means it can change back the other way as well.

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“We know we’ve got an issue. You can hear that Max, certainly today [Sunday], he didn’t feel that the car was responding to what he wanted.

“I think we’ve obviously got to be able to manifest that into a setup that works these tyres and across all conditions, and McLaren did that with Lando today.

“We weren’t able to, but we limited the damage – if you can’t win it, finish second.

“The McLaren has been the benchmark car over the last few races, and we’re very acutely aware that we need to respond to that, and everybody in Milton Keynes is working incredibly hard to address that.”

When asked more about describing McLaren as the ‘benchmark’ team, Horner added it is now Red Bull’s responsibility to respond to their pace, with a slender advantage in the Constructors’ Championship that has shrunk to 30 points following the Dutch Grand Prix.

“McLaren is setting the benchmark now,” Horner stated. “That’s clear in terms of pace, they’ve been that at the last couple of races, or certainly in Hungary, they were very competitive. Spa, it was Mercedes.

“Here [Zandvoort], Lando in particular was very strong. So definitely, they have the fastest car at the moment, and we have to respond to that.

“It’s not rocket science. There are no silver bullets in this business. It’s a matter of understanding the problem, addressing the problem, and then implementing fixes to it.”

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