07/09/2024
NEWS STORY
As Max Verstappen all but gives up on titles, Christian Horner claims that a correlation issue is at the heart of the RB20's current problems.
"Last year we had a great car, which was the most dominant car ever, and we basically turned it into a monster, said the three-time world champion after Sunday's Italian Grand Prix.
"It's up to the team to come with lot of changes with the car," he added, because we basically went from a very dominant car to an undriveable car in the space of, what, six to eight months."
The RB20's decline has coincided with the continued improvement of the McLaren, and while Ferrari has also taken a step forward Mercedes' performance - not for the first time - appears to be track dependent.
While some, not least Zak Brown - under the guidance of the likes of the Sky Sports team - cite the behind the scenes dramas at Red Bull which have included the shock departure of Adrian Newey, Horner has turned to the old standby of correlation issues.
"With the pace we had today both championships absolutely will be under pressure," the Briton told reporters at race end, "for sure, we have to turn the situation around very quickly.
"I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies we have in the car versus last year," he added. "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 it, otherwise we put ourselves under massive pressure."
Seemingly, the ultra-low downforce requirements of the Monza track highlighted the RB20's issues more than at conventional circuits.
"I think on others perhaps running more downforce hides some of the balance issues we have," said Horner. "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."
In particular, Horner pointed to qualifying when Verstappen was were unable to improve on fresh rubber, whereas he could on a scrubbed set of tyres.
"I think 100% it's balance," he said, "we haven't got a connection between front and rear. "Max can't lean on the rear on the way into the corner, or Checo, 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.
"If you dig into it there were some of these issues early in the year," he added, "even when we were winning races by 20 seconds. 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."