Christian Horner is adamant that Red Bull is “still fighting” for both 2024 Formula 1 World Championships despite falling behind McLaren in the constructors’ version.
Max Verstappen remains in a strong position in the drivers’ championship, with a handy 52-point lead over Lando Norris, and that remains the team’s best chance of scoring a success this season.
However Horner says that the team hasn’t given up on securing both titles.
“I think that we’re going to fight all the way to the end of the championship,” he said.
“We’re 52 points ahead, with six races to go, but a lot of races, a lot of points on the board.
“So there’s a lot of racing still to happen. We’re certainly going to be fighting hard through the next triple-header, and then the final triple-header, after that.
“I think everybody’s massively motivated in the team. We’re still fighting, obviously, for both championships.
“So we took a hit again in the constructors’ [in Singapore], but still a lot of races to go, and some circuits that we’ve performed very well out in the past.”
Horner says that the team learned a lot about the tricky RB20 in the Baku and Singapore races.
That knowledge will feed into the update package that will be seen in Austin later this month, and which is still under development.
“There’s a lot of information that coming out of these events that will influence what’s going on the car in Austin,” he said.
“So we got a lot of useful information out of the last two races, but they’re very, very different venues to the sweeping curves of Austin. Mexico then Brazil is a different one again. So it’ll be interesting.
“I think that the encouraging thing was the car reacted as we as we hoped it would, and what our tools were telling us. So I think that’s the encouraging factor.
“And I think that that the team is starting to get a direction and understanding of where some of the limitations are, and some of the causes of limitations, that opens up development paths and veins that hopefully will be productive.”
Horner acknowledged that the Italian GP was a turning point in terms of understanding the car: “I think we could see the issues, but I think what Monza really exposed was perhaps some of the root cause, or help to identify the root cause of the issue.
“So taking Monza as the low point, we’re starting to build out of that.”
