Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says the Milton Keynes-based outfit needs to understand the weakness displayed by its RB20 in Monaco but insists the latter hasn’t suddenly “gone from being a good car to bad car”.
Red Bull faltered last weekend in the tight and unforgiving streets of Monte Carlo, where Max Verstappen struggled with the RB20’s stability on the track’s many bumps and kerbs.
The end result was a disappointing weekend, with the Dutchman qualifying a lowly P6 and finishing the processional race in the same position.
As for Sergio Perez, the Mexican didn’t even make it out of Q1 on Saturday while his Sunday was cut short after a massive crash with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen on the opening lap of the race.
But overall, Red Bull’s performance – especially in qualifying – paled in comparison to Ferrari and McLaren, the two leadings teams in the Principality.
Horner says Red Bull needs to better understand its car’s compliance issues in Monaco by digging into the trove of data that it collected last weekend.
“Obviously this race is won on a Saturday and that’s where we had a poor day,” Horner said after the race, quoted by Formula1.com.
“We need to understand that, understand what the issues were with the ride and the kerbs.
“We saw [the same weakness] in Singapore last year as well, so we’ve had another example of that. We know it’s an area of the car we need to work on.
“It was a very static race, the top 10 finished where they started from, the red flag effectively killed the race because everybody was going to run to the end of the race, so we have some lessons to take out of this weekend and learn from obviously.”
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Despite its Monaco struggles, Red Bull isn’t hitting the panic button just yet. But Horner noted that similar challenges to those encountered by its RB20 last weekend could resurface at next week’s Canadian Grand Prix on Montreal’s typically bumpy track.
However, the Red Bull chief is optimistic about the car's prospects for Barcelona, the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone, the trio of smoother venues that will make up F1’s first triple-header of the season.
“Look, we don’t take anything for granted, but we expect those tracks to suit the car,” Horner said.
“The car has won five races and [scored] a second place in Miami and won two Sprint races, so it isn’t like this car has gone from being a good car to a bad car.
“This circuit [Monaco] hasn’t played to our strengths, and we need to understand what are those weaknesses and how do we address them.
“I think it’s a continual process once you are into the law of diminishing returns, and of course your focus changes depending on what your weaknesses are,” he added.
“The [RB] car is running with our suspension from last year and doesn’t seem to have these issues, so we need to understand is it something we have introduced.”
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