Red Bull’s issues with its 2020 car are not insurmountable, even if significant work is required, says team boss Christian Horner.
Mercedes have been dominant at the start of the 2020 Formula 1 season, taking victory in all three races and showing a clear advantage in qualifying.
Horner said that while the team are trying to understand the issues they have with the car, they are confident they can turn things around and show more performance.
“I think the car is in better shape in the race,” Horner told Sky F1.
“We’ve got some issues. We brought some updates to the car that aren’t behaving themselves and we’ve got a lot of data now, we need to understand that. Now we’ve got two weeks to try and covert that into performance in time for Silverstone.
“There’s parts of the track where we’re very strong, and there’s other parts where compared to the Mercedes we’re giving away too much time. In the race that compresses, but we need to do a better job.”
Red Bull were tipped to have a strong season following their performance in pre-season testing, and Horner said that gave them confidence.
“We had a strong pre-season, the car behaved itself very, very well through Barcelona,” he said.
“You guys saw it knocking in the lap times. We had some issues in Austria last weekend but then they were very much accentuated here. This traditionally is a track that is very strong for us.
“We’ve got a lot of data, we’ve got a lot of information, and it’s now understanding that, using it and converting it into some updates and modifications to the car. I don’t think it will take much. We’ve got the base of a very good car here, we just need to get the guys into it quickly and I’m sure we’ll turn it around.”
Despite Horner’s optimism, driver Max Verstappen said it will be difficult for the team catch the dominant Mercedes.
“I think it will be very hard, of course, to beat them but I think it’s important for us now to understand where it went wrong and then, of course, correct it and try to learn from it and try to get it back on track,” Verstappen said.
“And as soon, of course, as you head into the right direction, then of course very quickly you can put a good amount of parts on the car – but first we need to really understand where the main critical problem is in the car.”