Christian Horner revealed a correlation problem that majorly contributed to his Formula 1 car issues. Red Bull faced an issue between design and wind tunnel numbers, which were later resolved to save the team from downfall.
Red Bull’s driver had to face spins during winter testing last year. The team had to carry the problem during the season, which was delayed due to COVID-19.
The spins were associated with drivers’ limitations with the car. However, the team then admitted to the aerodynamic issues. The scale of the problem was revealed when RB drivers could not match the Mercedes squad.
Red Bull struggled to match the Mercedes’ performance through updates. The team approached the season differently by bringing regular updates throughout the season. It helped the team to reduce the gap and Horner is optimistic that it will enhance 2021 car performance.
“We’ve worked very hard to understand why we struggled for correlation at the beginning of last year,” the Red Bull team principal spoke with Autosport in an exclusive interview for this week’s Autosport magazine.
“When it [the season] eventually got going, compared with what our simulation tools were telling us – both windtunnel and other tools [something was amiss].
“So, we learned a lot during 2020. And, of course, the challenge now is to apply that in 2021.”
Read More: Horner believes Red Bull will be stronger this year
Horner was asked if Red Bull has overcome the correlation problem. He replied: “I don’t know – we’ll see when the car runs!
“I think we gained a lot of understanding through last year, and I think some of it [was] the complexities of our windtunnel, which has its limitations in some respects.
“So yeah, I think we’re only going to know what sort of progress we’ve made once we get racing from Bahrain onwards.”
Max Verstappen showed his dissatisfaction with the Red Bull’s approach because it “just depend a bit more on track running” with new updates and that “we have to find a way of making sure that what comes out of the windtunnel works straight away on the car, and it’s immediate, and puts us in the right direction”.
Horner agrees with Verstappen’s comments and admitted that they have a high number of upgrades last season.
“When something new is introduced to the car, it tends to stay on the car.
“And of course, you don’t have the benefit of testing anymore, so you have to test components at a grand prix circuit or in your virtual world.
“I think we were led off at a tangent at the beginning of the year. And we managed to recover from that throughout the 2020 season.
“And of course that’s what we’ll be looking to learn from as we head into the 2021 season.”
