Christian Horner counters Adrian Newey’s ‘inexperience’ claim as cause of Red Bull’s struggles

Christian Horner countered Adrian Newey’s claim that a “lack of experience” was behind Red Bull’s mid-season dip in performance.

Newey’s departure from Red Bull last year coincided with the F1 team’s drop down the pecking order.

Red Bull were out-performed by McLaren and Ferrari for much of the second half of the season as they fell to third in the constructors' championship. 

Max Verstappen hung on to win the drivers’ championship after winning seven of the opening ten races.

After that, he won just two of the subsequent 14 races, highlighting how difficult it was for Red Bull in the second half of the campaign.

In an off-season interview with German publication AMuS, Newey said of Red Bull’s issues in 2024: “From what I can see from the outside, but I don’t know, the guys at Red Bull - this is no criticism - they just perhaps through lack of experience kept going in that same direction.

“The problem came more and more acute to the point that even Max found it difficult to drive.”

Newey will start work with Aston Martin as their managing technical partner from early March.

Red Bull’s issues were “deep-rooted”

Before Tuesday's F1 75 Live event, Horner was quizzed on Newey’s comments.

Horner was keen to point out that the issues faced with the RB20 were “deep-rooted” and were traced back to their dominant 2023 season.

“I’m not sure I haven’t seen those comments, but I think the issues are more deep-rooted than just last year,” Horner told media, including Crash.net.

“When you really dig into the data and some of the characteristics, you start to see them much earlier than that, certainly during 2023.

“It was a matter of unravelling it to understand what were the contributing factors to having a very peaky performance. I think that’s where the team have worked very hard to understand that and address it.”

Verstappen will look to win a fifth straight drivers’ title in 2025.

If he does, he will become the first driver to win five in a row since Michael Schumacher (2000-2004).

He has a new teammate in Liam Lawson, who impressed during his six-race stint with RB.