F1: Horner says Red Bull is caught in a vicious circle

Red Bull’s loss of form after dominating last season stems from car balance issues creating a vicious circle for the Formula One champions, according to team boss Christian Horner.

The team won 21 of 22 races in 2023, the most one-sided campaign ever, with triple champion Max Verstappen taking 19 of those victories.

Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix stretched Red Bull and Verstappen’s losing streak to six races and left the Dutch driver 62 points clear of McLaren’s Lando Norris with eight rounds remaining.

Verstappen told reporters at Monza after finishing sixth that his car had become a monster, and felt both titles were now at risk.

ALSO READ | Leclerc delights home fans with Italian GP win

“I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies that we have in the car versus last year,” said Horner, speaking to media in the team hospitality.

“You can see that we have a disconnection in balance that just isn’t working.

“As soon as you end up in that situation, you’re harder on tyres. You end up compensating, you move the balance around, you secure one problem and you create another. So you just end up in a vicious circle.

“I think it’s been there for some time. I think actually really going through the data, there were issues there at the beginning of the year in the characteristic.

“I think others have obviously made a step and as we’ve pushed the package harder it’s exposed the issue.”

Some of that, he added, had been seen as far back as Austin last year when Red Bull were three races into a seven-race winning run.

The Briton said Verstappen and team mate Sergio Perez had tried to compensate by calming the rear of the car but that had consequences for the front, resulting in understeer and excessive tyre wear.

He said Ferrari winning rather than McLaren was a help but Red Bull needed to find a quick solution or suffer the consequences.

“Based on today’s performance, you’d say both (titles) are under absolute pressure,” he added. “We were the fourth fastest car today and that’s the reality. We’ve got to turn it around.”

Horner recognised there was a discrepancy between the data emerging from the wind tunnel and that seen at the track but said the McLaren appeared to be simpler and more effective.

“Perhaps we’ve gone a little too complex and perhaps we need to simplify a few things,” he added.

“When the car is in the (performance) window, it works as predicted or closer to prediction. But that window is so small, that’s what we have to work on. We have to broaden its operating window.”

Despite Verstappen’s concern, Horner said the champion was showing no sign of panic.

“He’s working with the engineers, he’s explaining very clearly where the issues are, he’s putting the time and effort in,” he said.

“He was in early this morning, he was on Zoom calls last week, he’ll be on the simulator before the next race and he’s really working hard at this.”