Red Bull will bring a substantial change when F1 restarts in Austin in two weeks. It was its director, Christian Horner, who confirmed this, specifying that the objective of these new features was to improve the balance of the RB20.
“I think for all teams, it’s a natural time of year where all teams will bring something to Austin.” Horner explained. “We heard Ferrari had something big.”
“I think Mercedes and McLaren will all bring something. Now I think what we’re looking to do is develop the understanding that we started to have since Monza, and bring a car that is well balanced between the front and back.”
“It gives the driver confidence. It’s a very different challenge. The first sector is very fast. They’ve also resurfaced parts of the circuit, which is another variable.”
“It’s a Sprint weekend, so you have to quickly get into the rhythm. You have to take all these elements into account. The whole team has worked incredibly hard to understand the problems, solve them and get, I ‘Hopefully, car fixes for Austin.’
Red Bull’s fundamental problems are not recent, Horner continues, comparing Max Verstappen to Michael Schumacher, in the Benetton 30 years ago: “I think we’ve seen some aerodynamic issues that, when you peel back the layers of the onion, actually go back to 2023.”
“I think Max, with his amazing ability to work around problems, was able to cope with it, whereas Checo was much more affected by it. So much so that it was a bit like Benetton in the early 90s. “
“Michael [Schumacher] could drive this car, but all the other drivers seemed to have difficulty mastering it. Max has that ability to get around a car with those sensitivities.”
“We saw signs of this in the design of the car at Monza, but when you take away the downforce it highlights the disconnect between the front and rear axle. The numbers we expected to see on the track were a thousand miles from those of our simulation tools.”
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