Red Bull 'hugely exposed' at Silverstone

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed his frustration at how much the team looked inferior to Ferrari in terms of power at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday, saying that Red Bull's engine disadvantage left the team 'hugely exposed' on the track.

The British GP was certainly a forgettable one for Red Bull, with Daniel Ricciardo finishing fifth and Max Verstappen not even finishing, and Horner believes trying to keep up with the sheer pace of Ferrari was ultimately the downfall for the team.

"We were just hugely exposed [on Sunday], in both defence and attack," Horner said.

"You could see at the restart with Kimi: it was a bit like Mexico 2015 the amount of additional power. We ran our qualifying mode at the restart versus Kimi's and you can see the difference.

"You could see how hard Max was having to work to keep Kimi behind him, their overspeed at the restart was insane. And at the second restart he had a moment at Stowe yet was still all over Max into turns 2 and 3."

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It wasn't just Ferrari that Red Bull looked inferior to, according to Horner, as he lamented Ricciardo's car's lack of penetration when trying to catch Valtteri Bottas, even though the Finn was having tyre issues.

"He just couldn't attack Valtteri while having a superior tyre and grip and performance" Horner continued.

"The problem with Silverstone now is that it's such a wide open throttle circuit. You're talking 82 per cent in qualifying full throttle.

"Corners like Copse, Becketts, Stowe are not quite the challenge they were in these cars - everybody is flat through Copse now.

"It just scrubs speed, so it's made it much more power-centric. That's when the power really kicks in. And we see it time and time again: turn 3 at Barcelona, turn 3 in Sochi, turn 7 in Austria. It's a known issue.

"In qualifying I think every single corner we were quicker than Sebastian, but we just hose time down the straights."