Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has insisted the reigning Formula 1 constructors’ championship-winning outfit must now “attack” after being leapfrogged by McLaren.
Oscar Piastri‘s victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, along with Lando Norris‘ recovery from 15th on the grid to fourth, Sergio Perez‘s late-race tangle with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen‘s uncharacteristic weekend of struggles saw Red Bull fall from the top of the standings for the first time since the 2022 Miami Grand Prix.
Norris also closed in on Verstappen in the drivers’ title hunt, albeit by only three points, to add to gains made in the Netherlands and Italy, with Red Bull now facing the need to turn around its form after three weekends of car struggles.
Horner pointed to the damage limitation, explaining: “I mean if you look at it before the weekend, based on where we were in Monza, what has he taken, three points off him?”
However, he conceded: “It’s frustrating, particularly after where Lando qualified, that we didn’t beat him, but thankfully he hasn’t scored big points. But we’ve got to build on what we’ve learned already and there’s still a lot of racing to do.
“We took a big hit in the constructors’ today, but we’ve got 20 points as deficit now, so we’ve got to attack. Still got seven races to go, two sprint races to go. There’s a lot of points up for grabs and a lot of different circuits coming up, so it’s far from over.”
Verstappen’s lack of cohesion with his RB20 was evidenced by Perez outqualifying his team-mate for the first time since Miami last year.
The Mexican displayed his best form of the season to challenge Piastri and Charles Leclerc but, when Sainz joined the battle for the lead as his Ferrari team-mate faltered on quickly degrading hard tyres, team play came to hurt Perez.
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
A move to the outside of Leclerc at Turn 1 saw the Monegasque leave Perez high and dry, allowing Sainz to scamper through. But as the duo came out of Turn 3 side by side, both chasing the tow from Leclerc, they tangled, with both cars left with extensive damage in the wall.
“Frustrating, because with Checo, he certainly should have been on the podium at the very least in third place, probably second,” said Horner when commenting on Perez’s race.
“I think actually he could have won that race, had it not been for… he lost a lot of time behind Alex Albon initially and then Lando whilst he was on new tyres and Oscar was still out on the old tyres.
“Lando backed him up, which allowed Oscar to keep track position and I think without that, we would have been ahead of Oscar and he would have passed Leclerc and he would have been fine, so hugely frustrating.”
On the incident itself, Horner added: “You can quite clearly see that Carlos, if you take the wall as a reference and the white line on the right-hand side of the track, you see him look in his mirror and just drift to the left, knowing that he was there, and Checo doesn’t move left or right, so hugely frustrating to lose that.”
