Horner admits that there is work to do…
Christian Horner has explained how a serious balance issue that has been a characteristic of the Red Bull RB20 for some time came to the fore over the Italian GP weekend.
The team had a difficult weekend in Monza, with Max Verstappen qualifying only seventh and finishing a distant sixth.
Horner suggested that the car is “a little too complex” compared to the 2023 model and that it has created a “vicious circle” as the team, tries to solve its problems.
“I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies that we have in the car versus last year,” said Horner.
“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 put ourselves under massive pressure.”
Asked why the car was difficult at Monza he said: “I think on others, running more downforce perhaps hide some of the balance issues that we have. And you can see that we got a disconnection in balance that just isn’t working.
“And then 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, you create another. So you just end up in a vicious circle.”
Intriguingly Horner suggested that the team had tried to make too big a step compared to last year’s car.
“I think you’ve got to look at all aspects of the car,” he noted. “There’s a balance issue with the car that isn’t allowing the drivers to commit to corner entry. So as soon as you calm down the rear, you do that by compromising the front.
“So then you end up with understeer, and then you kill your tyre that way. So I think what we really need to do is get the map.
“If you look at the McLaren, it almost looks like an evolution of last year’s car, a much simpler car than ours. Perhaps we’ve gone a little too complex, and perhaps we need to simplify a few things.”
Horner was adamant that the problem hasn’t just emerged recently.
“I think it’s been there for some time,” he said. “I think really going through the data, there was issues there at the beginning of the year. I think others have obviously made a step, and as we’ve pushed the package harder, it has exposed the issue.
“So even if you go back, there were a few races last year where we started to see this in Austin and so on. I think it’s a characteristic that we know we have to address. And it’s full focus in the factory of Milton Keynes to do that.”
Horner stressed that the issue is all about finding a balance that the drivers can live with.
“We haven’t got a connection between front and rear,” he said.
“I think Max can’t lean on the rear on the way into the corner, or Checo. And I think you then end up compensating for that.
“Then you create understeer, and it’s on such a fine line, and you can see it in qualifying, on a scrubbed tyre with a balance, we could do a 1m19.6s 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.”
He added: “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.
“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. Then you have to go back to track data and previous experience.”
Adam Cooper F1 