Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed that the team’s recent troubles are down to a correlation problem that has created a “disconnect” within its Formula 1 car.
The Austrian outfit started the campaign appearing in imperious shape once more as Max Verstappen piloted the RB20 to four victories during the opening five races.
However, Red Bull’s dominance has come to a shuddering halt over recent times as a misstep in development has seen it drop behind McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.
Red Bull’s woes reached a new low at the Italian Grand Prix as Verstappen, who came home in sixth, labelled the RB20 a “monster” that must be turned “upside down”.
The Dutchman has declared that retaining his title is “not realistic” despite his 62-point lead, while Red Bull’s margin over McLaren has been eradicated to eight points.
Horner has acknowledged that Red Bull’s lacklustre competitiveness at Monza has demonstrated that even Verstappen’s handsome advantage might be under threat.
“With the pace we had today… both championships absolutely will be under pressure, for sure, we have to turn the situation around very quickly,” Horner conceded.
“I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies we have in the car versus last year. And I think that we have a very clear issue which has been highlighted this weekend.
“We know we have to get on top of and address, otherwise we put ourselves under massive pressure.”
Horner believes that Monza’s extreme low-downforce demands exasperated Red Bull’s struggles more than on circuits that contain conventional track characteristics.
“I think on others perhaps running more downforce hides some of the balance issues we have,” he explained.
“And 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 create another, so you just end up in a vicious circle.”
Horner denied that Red Bull’s choice to run a more loaded rear wing than its competitors contributed to the squad being at its least competitive all term last weekend.
Instead, the Briton highlighted Red Bull’s bewildering failure to improve on new rubber compared to a scrubbed set in qualifying as evidence that it’s an inherent issue.
“I think 100% it’s balance, we haven’t got a connection between front and rear,” he pinpointed.
“Max can’t lean on the rear on the way into the corner, or Checo [Sergio Perez], they end up compensating for that, creating understeer, and it’s such a fine line.
“You look at qualifying, on a scrubbed tyre with a balance we can do a [1:]19.6s that matched the best times.
“Then two new set of tyres on and the balance is completely out and we go four and a half tenths slower.”
Horner has divulged that Red Bull’s strive to address the problems it has experienced will be made tougher as it can no longer trust what its simulation tools indicate.
“I think if you dig into it there were some of these issues early in the year, even when we were winning races by 20 seconds,” he claimed.
“I think that recent upgrades, whilst it put load on the car, it’s disconnected the front and rear, and 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.”
