Red Bull has been going through many ups and downs this season. They have been the most dominant team in the cost cap era. Max Verstappen won the 2021 Driver’s Championship, and since then, the momentum has shifted completely in the favor of the Austrian outfit. Christian Horner’s team managed to win back-to-back constructor titles in a dominating fashion. In 2022, the Milton Keynes outfit won as many as 17 races. The Dutch racer himself won 15 races that year, breaking the records of Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel. Previously, the record for most wins in a single F1 season was 13 wins, which belonged to the two great German drivers.
Then, as of last year, Max Verstappen has broken his own record of 15 wins in 2022. In 2023, he managed to win 19 races and helped Red Bull win a grand total of 21 wins out of 22 races. That’s how dominating Horner’s team has been in the last two years. But this year, things have been beginning to fall apart for the Austrian outfit since the start of the season. Amid these difficult times, Horner says the team is still focusing on making the RB20 car better.
Christian Horner Says Red Bull Is Keeping Their Priorities Straight
Clearly, Red Bull is not looking like the most dominant team at the moment. But they are still in the lead in both the standings – Driver’s and Constructor’s. However, the gap between McLaren and the Austrian team is beginning to close. Moreover, Lando Norris is now 78 points behind the Dutch racer with a lot of races to go. On the other hand, several key members of the reigning champions are beginning to leave the team. Recently, Jonathan Wheatley, the sporting director of Red Bull Racing, decided to part ways. Previously, the design chief Adrian Newey, the mastermind behind the superior RB19, announced his departure. With Newey and Wheatley leaving the team next year, RBR sure is feeling the pressure at present. It all started early this year when a female employee accused Christian Horner of “Inappropriate behavior.”
Later, Max Verstappen’s father, Jos told the media that Horner will play a major role in tearing the team apart if he stays in the same position where he is right now. Recently, amid all these turbulent times, the Red Bull team principal told the media that the team is still focusing on working on the car “Flat out.” He pointed at the stable regulations, saying what they learn now will stay relevant for the following years as well. Moreover, Christian Horner sounded very positive, saying, “We are over half distance after the first part of the year.” But the team principal is quite aware of the fact that their lead is starting to diminish as the table keeps moving around McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.
Why The Reigning Champions Are Dealing With Decline In Pace?
Recently, in an interview with Motorsport.com, Peter Wache talked about Red Bull’s decline in pace over the last few races. The Technical Director mentioned that some external factors have contributed to the shortcomings in the ongoing season. Moreover, the Red Bull engineer added that they can attribute some thing to the correlation between practice and the wind tunnel.
Wache noted that their wind tunnel is quite old relatively. On top of that, he cited the team’s position in the championship as a reason why they can run fewer hours in the tunnel. Last victory of Red Bull came in the Spanish Grand Prix as Verstappen won his 7th this season.
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