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Horner admits Red Bull ‘under pressure’ as he explains ‘vicious circle’ team are in
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Christian Horner has conceded that Red Bull urgently need to “turn the situation around” after losing further ground in both championships during the Italian Grand Prix weekend, with the team boss admitting that the squad are caught in a “vicious circle” with their car problems.
After a difficult qualifying session saw Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez line up in seventh and eighth on the grid, both cars were unable to match the pace of Ferrari and McLaren up ahead and crossed the line in P6 and P8 respectively.
Verstappen suggested post-race that the team would need to “basically change the whole car” ahead of the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix, while McLaren’s two-three finish at Monza helped the Woking squad to cut Red Bull’s lead in the constructors’ standings down to just eight points.
Horner similarly acknowledged that the Milton Keynes outfit will have to work hard to address the “very clear issue” that they are experiencing with the RB20 in order to avoid any further losses in both title fights.
“With the pace that we had today, both championships absolutely will be under pressure, for sure,” Horner commented after the race. “We have to turn the situation around very quickly.
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“I think this circuit has exposed 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 and we know we have to get on top of and address [that], otherwise we put ourselves under massive pressure.”
Horner explained further: “I think on other [tracks], running more downforce perhaps hides some of the balance issues that we have, and you can see that we’ve got a disconnection in balance that just isn’t working.
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“And as soon as you end up in that situation, you end up [where] you’re harder on tyres, you end up compensating the balance around – to cure one problem you create another, so you just end up in a vicious circle.”
Despite their strong performances at the start of the campaign – with Verstappen having won the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix with a 22-second lead – Horner believes that the problem existed from an early stage.
“I think it’s been there for some time,” the Team Principal said. “I think actually, really going through the data, there [were] issues there at the beginning of the year in the characteristics. I think others have obviously made a step, and as we’ve pushed the package harder it’s exposed the issue.
“So even if you go back in the data, there were a few races last year where [it was there]. I think it’s a characteristic we have to address, and there’s full focus at the factory in Milton Keynes.”
Red Bull are now just eight points ahead in the constructors' championship with eight races remaining
Elaborating further on the nature of the problem, Horner admitted that the team have not always seen the issue reflected in the data which has presented an additional obstacle.
“If you dig into it, I think there were some of these issues early in the year, when we were winning races by 20 seconds,” he added. “I think recent upgrades that have put load on the car have disconnected the 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.”
With Horner conceding that “finishing sixth hurts”, the squad will now utilise the time available prior to heading to Baku as they look to put solutions in place.
“The most important thing is understanding the issue, and I think there are certain fixes that potentially can be introduced, perhaps not to resolve the whole issue but address some of it,” the Red Bull boss stated.
“I think we have a two-week period before Baku and Singapore and then we have another mini-break where we can work in-between Singapore and Austin, so this time now is crucial.”
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