Christian Horner makes RB20 data reveal as ‘trust’ issue emerges at Red Bull

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has admitted both championships could elude his team this year, based on its form at Monza.

Verstappen finished in sixth place, almost 40 seconds behind race winner Charles Leclerc for Ferrari , with his championship lead shrinking to 62 points, while Red Bull’s advantage has shrunk to a paltry eight points over McLaren.

Christian Horner: Both championships are under pressure

With Red Bull’s season coming off the rails through the middle portion of the championship as the Milton Keynes-based squad has struggled to understand its RB20 and the upgrades introduced through its development, Horner was matter-of-fact as he responded to the Monza race results.

Speaking to media, including PlanetF1.com, Horner said Monza highlighted the problems the team is experiencing with the RB20 and said only a big turnaround can save the title push.

“With the pace that we had today, both championships absolutely will be under pressure, for sure,” he said.

“We were the fourth-fastest car today, and that’s the reality. We have to turn it around if we want to make sure we win both titles, we’ve got to put some performance on the car.

“So we have to turn the situation around very quickly. I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies that we have in the car versus last year, and I think that we have a very clear issue, which has been highlighted this weekend, that we know we have to get on top of and address.

“Otherwise, we’ve got ourselves under massive pressure.”

As for whether the issues are down to car setup or the ongoing balance complaints that both drivers have highlighted, Horner said it’s evident the car can be fast but only in a very exact circumstance.

“I think it’s more balance, I think 100 percent, it’s balance,” he said.

“We haven’t got a connection between front and rear, and Max or Checo [Perez] can’t lean on the rear on the way into the corner.

“You then end up compensating for that, then you create understeer and it’s on such a fine line.

“You could see it in qualifying, on a scrubbed tyre with a balance, we could do a 19.6 that matched the best times. Then we put two new sets of tyres on, the balance is then completely out, and we go four and a half tenths slower.”

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Christian Horner: Red Bull can’t trust its tools

Elaborating on the deficiencies Red Bull is experiencing with the RB20, a car that began life as a dominant race winner before the issues started to emerge from Miami onward, Horner explained how its own data suggests the car should be performing far more strongly.

“If you dig into it, I think there were some of these issues early in the year, even when we were winning races by 20 seconds,” he said.

“I think the recent upgrades, whilst they’ve put load on the car, it’s disconnected front and rear. We can see that – our wind tunnel doesn’t say that, but the track says that.

“So it’s getting on top of that, because, obviously, when you have that, it means you can’t trust your tools. So then you have to go back to track data and previous experience.”

These complaints closely echo what Mercedes encountered over the past two seasons with its previous ‘zeropod’ concept, which was eventually abandoned, to far greater success, for the W15.

This correlation issue has Red Bull stumped, Horner explained, as he suggested an idea may be to revert to an older spec in order to bring back some comfort behind the wheel – even if that means running a theoretically slower machine.

“We’ve hit the ceiling in certain areas and the cars disconnected, and, sometimes maybe, to have slightly less load but an overall better balance would generate better lap time, better degradation, better tyre management, and all those other aspects,” he said.

“You have to question everything. Has something else changed? So you can leave no stone unturned. But, I think where were we before – Miami, China, or Japan, we won at a canter.

“When the car is in the window and it works…When the car is in the window, it works as predicted or closer to prediction. But that window is so small, that’s what we have to work with – we have to widen the operating window.”

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