Christian Horner’s reported Zoom call ‘with the entire top’ amidst Red Bull’s troubles

Christian Horner on the Red Bull pit wall.

Christian Horner reportedly scheduled a Zoom call with the “entire top” of Red Bull’s engineering and design departments in light of the team’s shattered advantage on the track.

The dominant force in the opening rounds of the season as Red Bull looked to build on last year’s 21 wins in 22 races, Red Bull have not won any of the last five races which has put their lead in the Constructors’ Championship in jeopardy.

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Only 30 points ahead of McLaren, Red Bull’s hopes of fighting back at Monza were undone by an ill-handling RB20.

Speaking after finishing down in seventh place in qualifying where he was seven-tenths down on pole-sitter and his main title rival Lando Norris, Max Verstappen told the media including PlanetF1.com: “For whatever reason in Q3 I picked up a lot of understeer on both tyre sets, and this is something that I don’t understand at the moment.

“It was just not driveable in any corner, so that’s something that is very weird.”

This isn’t the first time the reigning World Champion has complained about his RB20 with Verstappen notably frustrated with Red Bull’s “not good enough” upgrades in Hungary.

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Doornbos claims such are the concerns, team boss Horner held a Zoom meeting with the “entire top” of Red bull’s engineering and design departments.

“You see that when the car performs less, the gap between Max and Perez becomes smaller. That’s crazy,” Doornbos told Ziggo Sport.

“That indicates that there is no balance, and the car no longer listens to its talent. It wants more bite at the front, but those engineers have to do that.

“Last week Christian Horner scheduled a Zoom call – because Max could not go to the factory – with the entire top of the engineering and design departments together, to explain that you can look at the data, but you also have to take the feeling of the driver into account.

“Max wants that car to bite at the front. If the rear moves, he will survive with his talent.

“You have two problems. You first have to get the balance right, and then the set-up. Then you fine-tune again, and then you dare more. Now he loses seven kilometres per hour to Lando Norris in the Parabolica alone, that is really a lot.

“They went back to the original floor from Bahrain. That’s race one. They’re now analysing where they made the wrong choice in the races after that. Let’s get started!”

The former F1 driver turned pundit dubbed Saturday in Monza a “very painful day” for Red Bull and went on to analyse Verstappen’s qualifying.

“It’s small things. He brakes with commitment for the first corner, but he doesn’t steer all the way from the white line,” he said.

“When exiting the corner you can also hear that he had wheelspin. That also indicates that you don’t have the mechanical grip in the car. When braking for the second chicane you want to take those kerbstones, if you have confidence in the car.

“When exiting Ascari, he has to weave through traffic. He tries to catch the slipstream of Sergio Perez. The lap before that, he already had a moment in the Parabolica, so in the second run he doesn’t dare to steer so well. Dare is a strong word, he has the knowledge of what the car can and cannot handle. It is Max’s worst qualifying in 2024.”

“Qualifying is one thing,” Doornbos added, “but if you don’t have a good qualifying car, you often don’t have a good race car either, because then the car eats the tyres. So the expectation of the race are not rosy.”

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