Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes that the Singapore GP indicated signs of “real progress” with the tricky RB20 – despite Max Verstappen finishing 20 seconds behind dominant race winner Lando Norris.
Red Bull had a floor revision in Baku that worked well on Sergio Perez’s car, but was less obvious on Verstappen’s due to a set-up mistake prior to qualifying.
Verstappen was happier with his car in Singapore, starting second and beating everyone else bar Norris in the race itself.
Horner noted that the Dutchman was particularly quick on the harder tyre in the second part of the race.
“First of all, you have to congratulate Lando and McLaren,” he said. “They had a very strong car this weekend, and particularly on the first stint, they were very quick. I think on the hard tyre, we looked in better shape.
“But of course, the gap is way too big by then, at a track where anyway it’s very hard to overtake.
“So I think if you roll back the clock to Friday, on Friday night I think if you’d have said we would qualify on the front row and take second place, a significant amount ahead of the rest of the field, I think we would have certainly taken that.
“But obviously, the gap to Lando was significant in the first part of the race, and we’ve now got the best part of a month to work hard and try and bring some performance to the car in Austin.”
Horner added: “I think Lando was a step ahead, particularly on the medium tyre. On the hard it didn’t show as much, but on the medium tyre, he was he was very, very quick today.
“But the rest of the field, I didn’t see a car that was quicker than Max. I thought Piastri had good duration to his stint on that medium tyre, but then on a hard tyre, it was an 18-second gap, and it seemed to be static for a long period.”
Horner admitted that Red Bull knew it was beaten during Norris’s first stint, which saw McLaren telling its driver to increase an already impressive gap.
“With the pace he had in hand on that tyre at that point we’ve conceded the race on pace,” he said. “He touched the wall for the first time, then he touched it for the second time. But obviously they’ve got it got away with it.
“I actually think Max drove a very strong race today, and that was what we had. Which when you consider where we were a couple of weeks ago, I think we have made some real progress. And obviously we’ve got a lot of work to do before Austin.”
Horner said the team had made a good recovery for qualifying in Baku after going the wrong way on setup in Friday practice.
“I think we wanted to avoid a repeat of last year,” he said. “And I think perhaps we overcompensated.
“But I think the way the team reacted, the effort that went into that reaction, we were able to give Max a much better car [on Saturday]. And obviously in the race we couldn’t compete with Lando today, but we had the rest of the field covered.”
Regarding Perez’s drive to 10th place he said: “Checo had a good first lap. He qualified out of position, and then he just really struggled to overtake.
“He was struggling a little for traction in the areas where you want the traction, out of Turn 3, and onto the back straight. But that was what he could manage today.”
