“They started this project a lot earlier than we did,” Christian Horner and Red Bull motivated to play catch-up with Ferrari
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Christian Horner
Red Bull, after winning the 2021 drivers’ championship with Max Verstappen stepped into 2022 with two goals in mind. The first was defending Max’s title, and the second was winning the constructors’ championship. And while they seemed to have quite a fast and balanced car, their struggle with reliability seems to be never-ending.
The team’s RB18 seems to be only lacking behind Ferrari in terms of overall performance. The latter already appears to have topped every aspect of an F1 car and is running away with the title rapidly with every race that Red Bull lands a DNF.
Speaking of their rival of this season, Ferrari, Christian Horner said to motorsportweek, “I think they started this project a lot earlier than we did. So to a degree, we’re playing catch up. But the fact that we’re playing catch up from the second-fastest position is encouraging. We’re starting to understand some of the issues that we have.”
Christian Horner on Red Bull’s further development
Red Bull is currently dealing with the issue of excess weight of its car and reliability issues that we’ve seen surface in Bahrain and Australia. Getting on top of these along with developing their car would be a huge ask from the engineers. The team, like the others, won’t likely go for a big upgrade until Spain, i.e., after a total of five races of data.
Chrisitan Horner speaking of it said, “I think it’s all part of the development and evolution of these cars. As we learn more about the tyres and how the car’s performing, that gives you a development direction. Over the first few races we’ve got some very good direction for the development vein for the rest of the season.”
Due to the sprint race weekend in Imola, Red Bull won’t be implementing any major upgrades. Horner said, “Being a Sprint Race, you get very little time to evaluate these things,” he said. “We’ve got one session and then into qualifying. You got to be very confident about what you’re putting on the car.”
Max Verstappen will continue his title defense after taking a huge blow in Australia. For him, finishing the race has become a higher priority than not finishing at all.
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Manan Goel
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