Christian Horner, Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing, has admitted that there were several factors which resulted in his team being unable to match the performance of McLaren’s Lando Norris at the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix.
“I think that there’s probably a couple of things,” Horner said while speaking with the media following Sunday’s race.
Horner acknowledged that McLaren had been exceptionally fast during the race but admitted that Red Bull had gambled with their set-up, opting for maximum downforce in anticipation of high degradation (deg) during the race.
“Well, first of all, [McLaren] were very, very fast today. So, you know, credit to them on that respect.”
“We took a little bit of a gamble because we thought that the deg was going to be quite high. And so, we went up quite a lot on the downforce level to maximum downforce.
“And that was a little bit of a gamble in that if the deg had been high, we felt it would help with the deg. As it turned out, the deg was low, very low, and it just made us slow on the straight line with Max.”
Ultimately, however, he stated that the gamble had not paid off, due to the lower-than-anticipated degradation. He added that while the set-up had helped Max Verstappen get a great start off the line to take an early lead, it had negatively affected their straight-line pace, which had resulted in Verstappen eventually losing the lead, and eventually the race, to Norris.
“So, he did the hard part at the start and made a great start. Led, obviously, into the first corner; was able to break the DRS.
“But pretty early on, you could see Lando was very comfortable behind him, and then, obviously, passed him pretty easy with the straight-line deficit that we had and the speed that he had.”
Horner stated that once Verstappen had been passed, his priority had become managing the race to keep ahead of the rest of the field, as his slower pace compared to Norris’ would have minimised his chances for retaking the lead.
“And then, to be honest with you, his pace thereafter, he was just managing the race, and from that point, I think [that] Max’s objective was to make sure that… he knew he couldn’t beat Lando today. He couldn’t beat him.”
The Red Bull Team Principal stated that while this outcome had been discussed before the race, there had still been some concern over Piastri’s pace, as the Australian had appeared to have good pace at some points, though he ultimately failed to capitalise on this.
“The most important thing that we discussed before the race is we can’t beat him [so] make sure that we beat the rest of the field.
“And I think at one point we were concerned about Piastri coming up very quickly, passing Russell, and then getting onto the back of Leclerc. But then he seemed to run out of pace, and we had that reasonably covered.”
Despite failing to secure the win, Horner acknowledged that the team had reaped some benefits from the Dutch Grand Prix.
“I think the benefit that we’ve run today is that we’ve run both cars in different specs. So, we’ve taken a lot of the data out of today,” Horner said, before adding that the team would need to work towards understanding and using the collected data and driver feedback to improve their race performance.
“But it’s important now that we understand and use that data and the driver feedback. Max is very clear in where he feels the issues are, of where we need to improve.”
The Red Bull Team Principal was asked if he was worried about Verstappen’s lead in the 2024 Drivers’ Championship. This question came following comments by Red Bull director Helmut Marko who reportedly expressed that Norris had the speed to catch up to Verstappen.
“Based on today’s performance, if it was like that at the next races, yes it would be very difficult.”
He did, however, add that it was only the fourth time this season that Verstappen’s lead in the points had been reduced, he remained seventy points ahead in the championship. Despite this, Horner emphasised the need for the team to “find performance” so that they could continue to extend their lead.
“It’s the fourth time this year, only the fourth time that Max’s points lead has reduced. It’s only Lando’s second win, but we know we have to find performance. So, we were 78 points, now we’re 70 ahead.
“We want to make sure that we extend the lead, not see it continually diminish.”
Horner explained that despite the disappointments of the weekend, the team had gained a lot of valuable information on the set-ups and stated that he hoped that this had given “real direction” to the engineering team. The cars were run in different specifications, a sign of the struggles they are facing at present.
“I think this weekend we’ve run the cars in different specifications, and I think that that has actually given us quite a lot of valuable info. I think that the drivers’ feedback has been very positive into that as well in terms of what they’re feeling from the different set-ups. So, I think it hopefully now gives a real direction for the engineering group.”
When asked which of the two packages had shown better performance, Horner suggested that further analysis of the data would be needed but stated that the package run by Sergio Pérez had been the better of the two.
“I think it was clear that Checo’s race performance or race package, I think, [was] the better of the two. But we’ve got all, obviously, 72 laps of data and a lot of [data] across two different compounds of tyres now to compare that info.”
Horner also spoke about Pérez’s performance during the race weekend. The Mexican driver, whose future at Red Bull has been rumoured to be uncertain after a series of poor performances, finished the Dutch Grand Prix in sixth, having lost position to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the start of the race. Despite being unable to join his teammate on the podium, Horner stated that Pérez had done “a solid job” and had had a decent race pace.
“I thought he did a solid job. If you look at his pace in the race, it was decent. Again, Sainz’ pace at one point, he had the fastest lap of the whole race. But I thought Checho, started P5, finish P6, I thought that was a very solid drive by him today.”
The Red Bull Team Principal added that while Pérez would be frustrated over losing his position at the start of the race, he expected that the Mexican driver would take “quite a lot of positives” from his performance which would put him on “a good trajectory” for the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
“I mean, obviously, he lost a position at the start, which was obviously a little frustrating for him. I think that actually, he’ll take quite a lot of positives out of his performance here, and hopefully, it puts him on a good trajectory for Monza.”
He highlighted the need for Red Bull to be able to produce set-ups that worked well with their tyres under all conditions, as McLaren has done with Norris, but expressed that while the team had failed to do so at Zandvoort, they had succeeded at damage limitation, securing Verstappen’s second-place finish.
“I think we’ve, obviously, got to be able to manifest that into a set-up that works these tyres across all conditions. McLaren did that with Lando today. We weren’t able to, but we limited the damage by if you can’t win it, finish second.”
Horner was also asked whether he thought that his driver’s performance had been limited as a result of the wet track conditions during Friday’s first practice session.
“It made us take a few risks in terms of… probably in hindsight we wouldn’t have gone in with as much downforce as we’d put on,” the Red Bull Team Principal replied, adding, “We’d have had a bit more long-run knowledge, you know etcetera etcetera.”
However, he acknowledged that this had been the same for the other teams on the grid, and admitted that despite the weather-affected first practice session, and shortened third, Red Bull had still managed to gain “very useful information” from the weekend.
“It’s the same for everybody, but we’ve actually taken some very useful information out of the weekend, and I think that there’s 144 laps worth of data for the engineers to be pouring over.”
Horner also addressed the competition between Red Bull and McLaren in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships, emphasised that while McLaren had been “the benchmark car” in the most recent races, Red Bull was aware of the need to respond, and was working hard to improve their performance and to address the identified issues.
“McLaren has been the benchmark car over the last few races and we’re very acutely aware that we need to respond to that. Everybody in Milton Keynes is working incredibly hard to address that.”
The Red Bull boss also addressed Verstappen’s attitude towards being unable to compete for the victory at the Dutch Grand Prix. Horner stated that he believed that Verstappen had accepted the situation and had acknowledged that Norris’ car was faster. He added that he thought that Verstappen had driven “a very mature race” to avoid conceding more points than necessary.
“I think he accepted it. He knew that Lando just had a quicker car today, and actually saw that from Friday.”
“I think he drove a very mature race where he wanted to ensure that he was conceding seven points to Lando, but he didn’t want to concede more than that. He just made sure that he delivered the result that he needed.”
When asked whether Verstappen’s defensive performance at Zandvoort would continue to be seen at the remaining races of the season, Horner responded that he thought it important for a driver to “drive with the championship in mind” but acknowledged the importance of good set-ups for the races.
“I think that you’ve got to drive with the championship in mind and there’s been seven different race winners this year. So, if you can’t win, then you’ve got to be scoring the points. I think that, obviously, it’s not nice to be beaten by 22 seconds, but it just shows when you get things right in your car in the window, as we saw earlier in the year, that kind of result is possible.”
