Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Renault struggles masked Red Bull weaknesses

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admits Renault’s problems at the start of the season masked weaknesses with the team’s chassis which needed addressing.

A regulation change over the winter saw the introduction of titanium skid blocks on the underside of the cars which wear more quickly and therefore prevent teams from running aggressive rake angles - with the rear much higher than the front - as the front of the floor would touch the track. The new regulation negates a previous Red Bull strength, and speaking exclusively to F1i Horner said Renault’s reliability problems at the start of the year held back progress with the RB11.

“We’ve found ourselves on the back foot in terms of reliability and penalties and so on,” Horner said. “That’s obviously been quite difficult to deal with, but I feel on the chassis side we’ve made very good progress.

“Regulations again over the winter did actually hurt us, particularly around the frontal area of the car, but I think the team has understood that in recent months and actually in the last two or three grands prix we’ve actually started making good headway.”

When asked if Red Bull was aware just how damaging the regulation change regarding the floor was likely to be to the team, Horner admitted it took a while to surface.

“Not really and I think our lack of mileage … when you’re chasing other reliability issues you’re not focusing on performance. I think that probably caused us a bit of a delay as well.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.