{"id":46911,"date":"2025-04-24T15:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T15:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/46911\/"},"modified":"2025-04-24T15:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T15:18:09","slug":"horner-master-of-deflection-as-sky-f1-pundit-scoffs-at-red-bull-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/46911\/","title":{"rendered":"Horner \u2018master of deflection\u2019 as Sky F1 pundit scoffs at Red Bull claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner pointed to their outdated windtunnel as a limitation regarding recent performance issues.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, that is merely a \u201cPR spin\u201d and \u201cdeflection\u201d from Horner, claims ex-F1 racer turned Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok, who says he put this theory to Red Bull<\/a>\u2018s sister team VCARB, who also uses this windtunnel, and they apparently quashed it.<\/p>\n

Red Bull windtunnel: A limitation or scapegoat?<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s dominance faded after the team lost their way with 2024\u2019s challenger, the RB20, and the RB21 has balance flaws still to iron out with Red Bull having claimed just the one victory so far in F1 2025.<\/p>\n

Horner has highlighted Red Bull\u2019s windtunnel as a key issue on that front, the team due to move out of their ageing facility near Bedford down the line with a new windtunnel under construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrimarily the wind tunnel has driven us in a direction that isn\u2019t replicating what we\u2019re on track and so, then you end up with a mishmash between what your tools are telling you and what the track data is and so obviously now as we\u2019re accumulating track data, it\u2019s the track data that\u2019s driving the solutions,\u201d the team principal told the media, including PlanetF1.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s clear we understand what the problem is, it\u2019s implementing the solution. It\u2019s the entry phase into the mid-corner that needs addressing and giving him [Verstappen] the ability and grip and confidence that takes carry speed into entry of corners, now that\u2019s fundamentally an aero issue that we need to be able to give him that grip.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem that we have is that we\u2019re at the end of a set of regulations where the gains are very, very marginal and I think we\u2019re seeing some of the shortcomings in our current tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horner doubled down on this stance on the Red Bull windtunnel when he spoke to Sky F1 at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think particularly when you get to the finer elements of a set of regulations like this, you know, the windtunnel that we have, it\u2019s a relic of the Cold War, so it has its limitations, which is why we\u2019ve invested in a new tunnel, which is in the process of being constructed,\u201d said Horner.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut with a set of regulations like this, you have a scatter of, you know, three points a run, pretty much. And when you\u2019re looking for a point, a point and a half, you know, that\u2019s in the scatter of the read that you get from the tunnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, yeah, it doesn\u2019t help, but we\u2019ve got some very bright engineers and aerodynamicists and mechanical designers. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

F1 2025 state of play after Saudi GP<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Have your say: Who will win the F1 2025 Drivers\u2019 title?<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0F1 2025 power rankings: Who are the best performers on this year\u2019s grid?<\/a><\/p>\n

But, considering that Red Bull\u2019s second F1 team VCARB also use this facility, Horner was met with a follow-up of \u2018and they haven\u2019t experienced the same issues?\u2019<\/p>\n

VCARB began the F1 2025 campaign as a major threat within the top 10, particularly over one lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I think they have, because they\u2019re not on pole position, are they?\u201d Horner struck back with.<\/p>\n

But, Chandhok said he has been in contact with VCARB personnel, who have confirmed to him that they are not seeing any correlation issues between the windtunnel and track.<\/p>\n

That, therefore, led to a blunt verdict from Chandhok on Horner\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Sky F1\u2019s The F1 Show<\/strong> podcast, Chandhok said: \u201cEvery time I listen to Christian Horner\u2019s \u2018our wind tunnel\u2019s a relic of the Cold War\u2019 thing, it\u2019s just PR spin, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s such a master politician. He\u2019s the master of deflection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see Racing Bulls complaining about correlation. They use the same wind tunnel. I actually asked a couple of the people at Racing Bulls whether they\u2019d struggled with the correlation. They said \u2018nope\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes back to a Red Bull Racing issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull sit P3 in the current F1 2025 Constructors\u2019 Championship standings, 99 points behind leaders McLaren, while Max Verstappen is P3 in the Drivers\u2019 Championship<\/a>, 12 points off Oscar Piastri and top spot.<\/p>\n

Read next: Herbert takes aim at Horner in \u2018zero understanding\u2019 Verstappen penalty verdict<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull team principal Christian Horner pointed to their outdated windtunnel as a limitation regarding recent performance issues.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[24994,4199,707,4200,225,12,1084,226,12591,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-46911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-christian-horner","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-racing-bulls","15":"tag-red-bull","16":"tag-sky-f1","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}