Christian Horner rejects talk of Red Bull being in ‘crisis’

Christian Horner has rejected the notion that his Red Bull F1 team are currently in “crisis”.

Following a woeful Bahrain Grand Prix in which Max Verstappen finished a distant sixth, Red Bull’s key management reportedly held crisis talks in the F1 paddock.

Red Bull team principal Horner, advisor Helmut Marko, technical director Pierre Wache and chief engineer Paul Monaghan were all spotted deep in conversation in the team’s hospital unit after last Sunday’s race.

But Horner has moved to downplay the meeting after it was branded as a ‘crisis summit’.

"It was not a crisis summit,” Horner told Sky Sports F1.

“If you sit down with your engineers and discuss the race, I wouldn't describe that as a crisis summit.

"We have lots of meetings. I think the crisis summit was described as the meeting after the race in Bahrain. You sit down and discuss these things logically. There's always engineering solutions to engineering issues.

"We are not where we want to be. We have got some issues with the car that we are working through and the whole team is working incredibly hard.

"We understand what the issues are, it's introducing a series of upgrades over the coming races to address some of those shortcomings.”

Red Bull wind tunnel not helping

Horner blamed Red Bull’s current struggles with their RB21 on wind tunnel data discrepancies which are not correlating with what the team are seeing in the real world environment on track.

“We’ve got some vices in our car, which with the margins being so close, if Max is not confident in the car on turning in and having that instability issue, that’s worth tenths or hundredths of a second, which in such a tight grid is multiple places,” he explained.

“We know when we can tidy that up, the performance will come.”

Horner admitted that Red Bull’s current wind tunnel, which he described as being a “relic of the cold war”, has not helped the situation.

"When you get to the finer elements of a set of regulations like this, the wind tunnel we have is a relic of the cold war, so has its limitations,” he added.

"We have invested in a new tunnel which is in the process of being constructed.

"It doesn't help but we have some very bright engineers, analysists and mechanical designers that I'm sure we will figure it out.”

Despite Red Bull’s current troubles, Verstappen is only eight points behind early championship leader Lando Norris.