Christian Horner insists that Max Verstappen remains sully supportive of Red Bull Racing despite the recent drop-off in the form of the RB20 and is “not panicking”
Verstappen has made it clear in public that he’s unhappy with how races have gone recently, having finished a distant sixth in Italy last weekend.
However, Horner says that the Dutchman is fully behind the ongoing efforts to turn things around.
“What’s really impressed me with Max is how he’s really engaged in this process,” said Horner. “He’s not panicking. He’s working with the engineers. He’s explaining very clearly where the issues are. He’s putting the time and effort in.
“He was in early [on Sunday] morning, he was on Zoom calls last week, he’ll be on the simulator before the next race, and he’s really working hard at this.
“And I think he’s shown great maturity as a World Champion, the way he’s working with the engineering group.
“Nobody likes the situation we’re in at the moment. Nobody’s happy with it, and we’ve got to work really hard to turn it around. But the one thing this team has is strength and depth and talent, and we’ll come back.”
Verstappen has made it clear that he would have liked Adrian Newey to have stayed at RBR, but Horner downplayed any potential impact of the former technical chief’s departure.
“I think we would have had all of these issues, because the issues were already there, and one man’s input could never be so dramatic so quickly,” he said.
“This started to really highlight itself in Miami, and Adrian was plugged in up until Friday of Miami, so there’s no way it would have impacted so quickly.
“F1 is a team sport. It’s a team it’s a team issue, and the team will come up with a resolution.”
Horner said that the team is looking everywhere for the roots of its current issues.
“You’ve got to question everything,” he said. “You have to question has something else changed? So you can leave no stone unturned.
“When the car is in the window and it works, you see in Austria, all four sets of tyres, Max put the car on pole position, and was leading the race easily until the final pit stop.
“Spa in the wet, even if you take out Max’s super talent, Checo was still on the front row.
“When the car is in the window it works as predicted, or closer to prediction. But that window is so small, and that’s what we have to work on, and we have to broaden its operating window.”
Horner acknowledged that there are some correlation issues.
“I think you have to pick your tools,” he noted. “CFD and wind tunnel data, obviously, it’s not unusual that when something’s not working on the car, you end up with a different reading from your simulation tools, and they don’t converge.
“Then you get three sets of data. You get CFD, you get wind tunnel, and you get track. Obviously, the one that really counts is the track data, but to develop it, it’s like telling the time with three different watches.
“You’ve got to focus on the tool that’s going to give you the most valuable input. And of course, the track data is the most reliable.”
