Christian Horner rejected the notion that his Red Bull F1 team is currently in a “crisis.”
Following the disastrous Bahrain Granpurin, where Max Verstappen finished in a distant sixth place, Red Bull’s main management reportedly held crisis talks at the Formula 1 paddock.
Red Bull Team Principal Horner, adviser Helmut Marco, technical director Pierre Wash and chief engineer Paul Monaghan all discovered the conversation deep in the team’s hospital troops after the race last Sunday.
However, Horner went on to downplay meetings after being branded as a “crisis summit.”
“It wasn’t a crisis summit,” Horner told Sky Sports F1.
“If you sit with your engineers and discuss races, we won’t describe it as a crisis summit.
“We have a lot of meetings. I think the Crisis Summit was described as a post-race meeting in Bahrain. You sit down and discuss these things logically. There is always an engineering solution for engineering problems.
“We are not the place we want, there are some issues with the cars we work for and our entire team is working very hard.
“We understand what the problem is, and this is introducing a series of upgrades in upcoming races to address some of these shortcomings.”
Red Bull-style tunnels don’t help
Max Verstappen
Horner avoids contradictions that do not correlate Red Bull’s current struggles and RB21 struggles with what teams see in orbital real-world environments.
“We have some vices in the car. The margins are very close. If Max isn’t confident with the car spinning and its volatile issues, it’s worth a tenth or a hundredth of a second.
“I know when I can sort it out and performances are coming.”
Horner admitted that Red Bull’s current wind tunnel, which he described as a “relic of the Cold War,” did not help the situation.
“When we reach such a finer element of a set of regulations, there are limitations as the wind tunnel we have is a Cold War relic,” he added.
“We invested in a new tunnel under construction.
“That won’t help, but we have very bright engineers, analysts and mechanical designers who are sure we’ll understand that.”
Despite Red Bull’s current troubles, Verstappen is just eight points behind early championship leader Lando Norris.