Red Bull Racing's proverbial weakness strikes again in Barcelona, but Horner is unfazed

08:35, 31 May

byNorberto Mujica

Following the first free practice, Christian Horner joined the press conference. The first free practice went fairly well for Verstappen, who finished in second place. However, team boss Horner still sees a number of issues with the Dutchman's car.

This weekend in Barcelona is set to be a hot one. Horner also noticed this, but wanted to focus primarily on the car's balance. He observed that his team still faces difficulties in this area. Of course, he also touched on the flexiwing clampdown implemented from the Spanish Grand Prix onward.

Max Verstappen during FP2 for the Spanish Grand Prix

Temperature plays a major role in Spain, amidst flexiwing clampdown impact

‘’Well, the drivers were making all the usual comments about understeer and front grip and so on. So, the change is reasonably subtle, but it is reasonably significant.''

''Now whether it's a net same effect for each of the teams is difficult to tell, but, yeah, they were just working on getting a balance. It's incredibly hot out there, and so the tyres are getting a bit of a pounding.’’

''Particularly now we're on the old circuit configuration. The front left really gets a hard time around here. So, I think it's going to take more than one session to see if there is an impact. Or if so, how it’s affected the different cars.''

Horner saw that the adjustments indeed make a difference, but so far they seem manageable for his team. How are they coping with it? ‘’Difficult to say. It didn’t sound from the driver’s comments too different to a normal Friday. For sure, it is different, and I think there’s a lot to understand. And it’s probably on long runs as well as short runs that it’s going to play a factor here. Still early days, but the net effect to us has been rather small,’’ said Horner.