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Red Bull Racing

Red Bull reveal 'flying circuits' testing to revive F1 titles bid

Can Red Bull use the Singapore GP to assist it over the last six races?

Verstappen FP1 Baku
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To news overview © XPBimages

Christian Horner has revealed Red Bull is "trying and testing" hoped-for solutions for its balance issues with its car that will stand the team in good stead for the upcoming "flying circuits".

Red Bull has seen its dominance of F1 undermined by an RB20 suffering with a disconnected balance between front and rear. This has resulted in a run of seven grands prix without a victory.

For the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Red Bull made tweaks to its floor, although as Horner conceded, he was unconcerned by how the car would perform around the Baku Street Circuit as it was not a track that would expose its weaknesses.

"For the characteristics of our car, particularly [in Baku] it is all slow, 90-degree corners," said Horner, speaking to media, including RacingNews365. "That hasn't been the Achilles heel of the car.

"So some of the changes that we're making, some of the discoveries we've had, are not that applicable for this circuit. They're more applicable for the likes of Austin, some of the faster-flowing circuits.

"Still valuable lessons that we can learn, and some of the stuff that we're trying and testing will certainly not be unbeneficial for a race like this, but we're expecting it to have a bigger effect at some of the more flying circuits."

Red Bull weakened by 'load'

Horner has previously explained that the issues being encountered started to manifest themselves as far back as last season's United States Grand Prix, and became more prevalent over the Miami GP weekend in early May.

Expanding on the exact nature of the problem, and what has occurred over the past few months, Horner said: "There are several aspects.

"One thing you're talking about is in terms of absolute load that you're putting on the car through upgrades, but then you have balance as well.

"We had a better-balanced car at the beginning of the year. As we've put load on the car, it hasn't correlated with what we've seen in our tools. I think a couple of other teams have had that as well.

"So as we're starting to push the extremities of these regulations, sometimes you find that correlation drops out between track and your simulation tools, which are primarily the wind tunnel and CFD. There's obviously been a big push to understand that and address it."

Also interesting:

Join RacingNews365’s Ian, Sam and Nick as they look back on last weekend’s Azerbaijan GP and look ahead to this weekend’s race in Singapore. McLaren taking the lead of the title and Red Bull now being the hunter are key talking points.

Prefer to watch the podcast? Then click here!

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