Horner concedes 'fundamental' issue halting Verstappen charge

Christian Horner has conceded Red Bull does not understand "fundamental" problems with its F1 car after a poor Italian Grand Prix qualifying.

As the team battles McLaren for the world championship titles, their form has gone in opposite directions with McLaren locking out the front-row at Monza as Red Bull struggles with the RB20, putting both titles at risk.

Max Verstappen could only manage seventh on the grid at Monza, 0.040s up on team-mate Sergio Perez in eighth, but some seven-tenths down on pole-sitter Lando Norris. 

Tension has been growing from aspects of the Verstappen camp over recent weeks at Red Bull's drop in competitiveness, as Horner conceded it did not understand how it managed to lap slower on new tyres than used ones during qualifying at Monza.

"We simply don't understand how we did a 1:19.6 on scrubbed tyres and then couldn't go faster on new tyres than a 1:20, the balance just isn't there," Horner told Sky Sports F1. 

"You can hear from Max's comments that something fundamental is happening that we aren't on top of and we need to understand why on the older tyres we were able to do a lap-time and then on two sets of new tyres not get anywhere near it. 

"In Q2, it didn't look too bad, but in Q3, there was something amiss that all the others can improve on new tyres but we were miles away, so we need to understand it quickly. 

"There is something that clearly isn't working on the car and we're trying to unravel and understand that, but first of all, you've got to understand the problem, how to address it and then implement it.

"There will be an engineering solution to an engineering problem."

Red Bull's race

Looking ahead to the race, Horner felt the team was continuing to trawl through data gathered last week at Zandvoort, but felt the Italian GP would be tough to improve from the fourth row.

"We ran the older spec last weekend to see if that redressed any of the issues, and the reality is that we had the same handling characteristics as with the beginning of the year," he said.

"It gave an awful lot of data for the guys, but it is a lot to get our head around and we need to address it quickly. 

"We can see the McLarens have made a significant step over the last few races and now we're behind Ferrari and Mercedes here as well. 

"Starting seventh and eighth is going to be tough.