Is the RB20 now slower than it was in Bahrain? Horner responds

F1 News

F1 Christian Horner on the RB20 in Bahrain
13 September at 19:30
  • Estéban den Toom

After the first free practice session, Christian Horner was asked whether Red Bull's current RB20 would have been slower on a track where the team won six months ago. The Red Bull Racing team boss does not think this would have been the case. The situation for Max Verstappen and Red Bull is becoming problematic in both championships.

With Verstappen and Red Bull losing a lot of ground in the championships, the car seems to be a lot slower than at the beginning of the year, when the Austrian constructor did win everything. 

Horner on the RB20

Horner does not believe that the RB20 is now slower. "No, no, no. I think that there's several aspects. One thing you're talking about is in terms of absolute load that you're putting on the car through upgrades, but then you have balance as well. I think we had a better balanced car at the beginning of the year. I think as we've put load on the car, it hasn't correlated with what we've seen in our tools. And I think a couple of other teams have had that as well," admits the Red Bull team boss.

"So as we're starting to push the extremities of these regulations, sometimes you find that correlation drops out between track and your simulation tools, which are primarily the wind tunnel and CFD. And so there's been obviously a big push to understand that and address it," Horner said.