Jul.20 (GMM) Red Bull’s 2020 car is not fundamentally flawed.
That is the claim of team boss Christian Horner, after Max Verstappen bounced back from poor qualifying pace and even a pre-race crash to finish second behind Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in Hungary.
Before that, team official Dr Helmut Marko said he thinks the 1.4 second qualifying gap to Lewis Hamilton showed that the 2020 car has a “fundamental problem”.
“There are some anomalies in the car,” Horner confirmed to Auto Motor und Sport.
“The aerodynamics do not behave as we would expect and we’re working hard to understand that, but I think the fundamentals of the car are right.
“We just need to somehow extract the pace that the simulations are promising us. Then we should be much closer,” he added.
After his pre-race crash and impressive 12-minute repair job on the grid by the mechanics, Verstappen said finishing second on Sunday was “the maximum” possible.
“Mercedes is so dominant so to be in between them is of course a great achievement,” the Dutchman told RTL.
But others are worried about the 2020 season overall, as amid Red Bull and Ferrari’s struggles, Mercedes is currently alone at the top of the field.
“From the point of view of audience interest, the current season is lost,” said former Minardi driver Sergey Zlobin.
“All the teams’ budgets have been protected to save the people’s jobs, so at least the drivers are driving and the mechanics and engineers have work to do,” he told Izvestia news agency.
“But there is nothing really interesting. Mercedes will easily take the title.”