‘Something is misbehaving on the Red Bull’ – Christian Horner

Christian Horner says Red Bull is working to get to the bottom of why the RB16 is ‘misbehaving’ after a Hungarian Grand Prix beset by ongoing chassis issues.

The team has come into the event confident of challenging Mercedes due to the high-downforce nature of the Hungaroring, but Red Bull instead found itself well off the pace with Max Verstappen and Alex Albon qualifying seventh and 13th respectively.

A strong charge by both drivers brought them to second and fifth by the chequered flag, but after three events beset by multiple spins – including one for Verstappen on the way to the grid in Hungary – the team understands there to be a flaw in the RB16’s design.

“I think we have got something misbehaving aerodynamically and it is a matter of understanding that and addressing that. In certain conditions, the car is behaving as expected and we actually have some very good data from this weekend, so the team will work hard to try and understand it and resolve it as quickly as we can.

Though Red Bull has generally been the second quickest team in the field, there remains a significant margin to Mercedes out front. Moreover, Horner believes Mercedes still have time in hand to fall back on if Red Bull closes the gap.

“We are definitely closer in the race, but Mercedes still have an advantage. So to split them was mainly due to strategy and Max’s first lap.

“We have some anomalies with the car that aren’t behaving as we expect them to, so a lot of work is going in to understanding that and addressing that for the future races. The recovery in the race I thought was very strong, but still Mercedes have quite a lot of pace in hand as you can see.”