Horner: Red Bull risk losing both F1 championships

Red Bull’s Christian Horner admits his team risks losing both drivers’ and constructors’ championships this year if it is unable to find a solution to the issues it faced at the Italian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen’s championship lead over Lando Norris was cut from 70 points to 62 after the Red Bull driver finished sixth at Monza, while McLaren is now just eight points off Red Bull in the constructors’ standings.

The narrowing margins follow a significant drop in form from the reigning champions at recent race.

Verstappen won seven of the first ten races of the season but has now gone six races without a victory, while teammate Sergio Pérez has not finished higher than sixth at the last ten races.

At the Italian Grand Prix, Verstappen finished sixth and Perez eighth, leading Verstappen to saying winning both titles is “not realistic” on the team’s current form.

“With the pace we had today… both championships absolutely will be under pressure, for sure, we have to turn the situation around very quickly,” Horner added.

“I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies we have in the car versus last year, and I think that we have a very clear issue which has been highlighted this weekend.

“We know we have to get on top of and address, otherwise we put ourselves under massive pressure.”

Both drivers have complained about the difficulty of finding a “balance” in the car, whereby they can trust the car won’t snap into oversteer on corner entry while also ensuring the front end remains responsive enough to get the car turned in through slow corners.

At recent races, Verstappen suggested the lack of balance has been introduced to the car this year, but Horner believes it was there throughout the season and is now being exposed as the team tries to push harder with development to remain ahead of rivals McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.

“I think it’s been there for some time, I think actually really going through the data there were issues there at the beginning of the year in the characteristics, others have obviously made a step and as we’ve pushed the package harder it’s exposed the issue,” Horner said.

“If you dig into it there were some of these issues early in the year, even when we were winning races by 20 seconds. I think that recent upgrades, whilst it put [aerodynamic] load on the car, it’s disconnected the front and rear, and we can see that.

“Our wind tunnel doesn’t say that, but the track says that, so it’s getting on top of that, because obviously when you have that it means you can’t trust your tools, so then you have to go back to track data and previous experience.”

Horner said the team was working on solutions and that the time between races would be crucial to delivering to the car as soon as possible.

“I think the most important thing is understanding the issue, and I think there are certain fixes that potentially can be introduced, perhaps not to resolve the whole issue, but to address some of it.

“We’ve now got a 2-week gap before Baku and Singapore, then another mini-break that we can work in, between Singapore and Austin, so this time now is crucial.”