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Horner's honest conclusion: 'Our problems were masked by dominance'
- Nicole Mulder
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has stated that the issues with the RB20 were partly overshadowed by the team's dominant performance in 2023. He pointed out that similar problems had already been noticeable with the RB19, the successful predecessor to the RB20, despite the team's overall success that year
Horner: 'Red Bull's problems masked by dominance'
In 2023, Red Bull failed to win just one race: the Singapore Grand Prix, where Carlos Sainz took the victory while Red Bull struggled to reach the podium. According to Christian Horner, the balance problems were already evident at that point but only became more pronounced in 2024.
"The problem is we won 22 out of 23 races last year. That masks a lot of the issues," the Red Bull team boss told Motorsport.com after the end of the 2024 season. He added that simulations are now starting to correlate more with reality. "That this was not the case previously contributed in large part to the team's problems last season."
The 51-year-old Briton compared the situation to wearing three watches that all show a different time. "So, which one do you believe? Ultimately, you believe the stopwatch on the track because that one doesn’t lie. And, of course, the biggest sensor you've got in that is the driver, and that's where Max played a key role this year," Horner explained.
Max Verstappen played a crucial role in identifying the problems and understanding where they were coming from. After the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the Dutchman saw graphs he had not seen before and helped the engineers pinpoint the cause of the issues. In the closing stages of the season, Red Bull managed to regain some of its previous form, and Verstappen secured two more victories, in Brazil and Qatar.
This article was written in collaboration with Toby Nixon
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