F1 team boss Christian Horner reveals 'FUNDAMENTAL' issue at center of Red Bull woes

Christian Horner, Red Bull, Bahrain, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

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Horner reveals 'FUNDAMENTAL' issue at center of Red Bull woes

The team are struggling to understand their troubles

Rhys Thomas

Wednesday 4 September 2024 16:00

Christian Horner has revealed that there is a 'fundamental' issue at the heart of Red Bull's recent dip in performance.

The Milton-Keynes based outfit looked set to continue their 2023 dominance into this season, as Verstappen vacuumed up a series of race wins at the beginning of the year.

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However, since Lando Norris' win in Miami, Red Bull have been largely on the back foot.

Rivals have closed the gap each week, and now the team's issues have culminated in a disastrous qualifying performance at Monza.

Max Verstappen and Red Bull have been down on pace in Italy

Red Bull were clearly the fourth best team in qualifying at Monza

Why are Red Bull suddenly so slow?

That the Dutch champion could only qualify in seventh, behind both McLarens, Mercedes, and Ferraris, signals the alarming derailment of Red Bull's development path.

As the fourth best team at Monza and with both championships under threat, there is serious urgency at Red Bull to rectify their problems.

"The balance just isn't there, you can hear from Max's comments," team principal Horner told Sky Sports after qualifying.

Throughout practice and the session, Verstappen complained that the car would not turn in low and medium speed corners, and that grip fluctuated between tyre sets of the same compound.

Christian Horner says Red Bull must address their issues quickly

"Something is fundamentally happening that we are not on top of. Q2 didn't look took too bad but in Q3 we were miles away."

Verstappen's P7 time was nearly seven tenths off Norris' pole position lap, and half a second slower than Lewis Hamilton in P6. Sergio Perez, meanwhile, abandoned his final flying lap and was 8th fastest.

"We are looking at everything," Horner continued. "We ran older spec last week to see if that redressed the issues but the reality was we still had the same handling characteristics and issues.

"We need to address it quickly as McLaren have made a significant step over the last few races and we are now behind Ferrari and Mercedes as well.

"Something is clearly not working on the car. There will be an engineering solution to an engineering problem."

Red Bull Max Verstappen Lando Norris Christian Horner Miami Monza