Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed the team has a development plan in place that it hopes will eliminate the current gap that exists to McLaren in Formula 1.
With zero race victories coming across the opening two rounds in Australia and China, Red Bull has experienced the team’s worst start to an F1 campaign since 2020.
Max Verstappen’s exploits have ensured that he is within touching distance, but Liam Lawson’s scoreless return has Red Bull languishing 42 points down on McLaren.
Having claimed a top-three result on the Sprint, the Dutchman minimised his loss to championship leader Lando Norris as he salvaged fourth place with a late charge.
However, Horner was made to ponder what might have been as he suspects that Red Bull’s reservations over tyre degradation denied Verstappen a run at the podium.
“We went into the race very concerned about the front-left tyre. I think, as everybody did, expecting it to be a two-stop,” Horner explained.
“We had a lot of discussion after the experience of the Sprint race, where we degged quite heavily.
“We were very competitive early on but then degged quite a bit, so we decided to conserve the tyre for the back end of that first stint.
“With 20/20 hindsight, we saw the pace on the in-lap; we probably could have pushed that first stint quite a bit harder.
“I think that would have seen him racing, probably George [Russell] at the end of the race.”
The enigma Red Bull is aiming to solve
Horner has admitted that Red Bull must seek to decode the reason behind the RB21 in Verstappen’s hands tending to be more competitive once the fuel load lightens.
“There’s a lot for us to take away and understand,” he said.
“We know we need to put performance on the car – it’s the second race in succession where the latter part of the race has been better for us.
“We’ve got a lot of information, a lot of data, and feedback from the driver.
“In the second stint, you could see – just have a look at the lap times, last third of the race. And particularly, you even look at his last lap – it was very competitive.
“Why was it competitive? What drove that competitiveness? What does he need in terms of switching on the grip?
“It’s not a balance issue so much that he’s struggling with, it’s just about extracting more from the tyre.
“We leave the first two races eight points behind in the Drivers’ Championship.
“We know we’ve got performance to find, the whole team’s working very hard, very focused on that.
“I think we’ve taken a lot of information out of this weekend and now with the two-week gap to Japan, we need to try and make sure we come back fighting hard there.”
Red Bull outlines upgrade plans with RB21
Verstappen cast a pessimistic stance on Red Bull’s competitiveness over the Shanghai weekend as he suggested the RB21 was a slower car than its rivals’ machines.
However, Horner disagreed with that assessment, citing that the pecking order up and down the grid will continue to be dependent on variables at each race weekend.
But while he has conceded the team is trailing behind McLaren, Horner has insisted the gap is minimal and can be overturned with the upgrades Red Bull has coming.
“I think it’s all subjective to the day that you’re on,” he argued.
“[Verstappen] caught and passed two Ferraris, passed one of them.
“Today, McLarens are the benchmark – they’ve won the first two races. That’s who we have to beat, that’s what we’ve got to beat.
“I think we’ve got a reasonable basis. We were 0.17 [seconds] off pole and we were as quick in the second stint as the McLarens.
“We know there’s areas that we need to improve the car, and there’s a roadmap of development that is planned.
“We’re trying to make sure that that develops what we need in terms of lap time to really find a little bit more pace and put a lot of pressure on the McLarens ahead, but they’re not far ahead.”
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