Christian Horner lifts lid on 'serious talks' with Lewis Hamilton about joining Red Bull
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has revealed they have been busy developing next year’s Formula 1 car since the midpoint of this year – despite Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton claiming their rivals had not touched their car since the summer such was their success.
Horner, 50, has seen Max Verstappen win all but one race this year. The only exception was the Singapore Grand Prix, when, after qualifying in 11th and failing to reach the final session, the world champion could only recover to fifth place on race day.
That came after the team opted against pitting him and his teammate Sergio Perez during an early safety car period. They then struggled on their older hard tyres at the restart and soon came into the pits after being passed by Hamilton, his teammate George Russell and McLaren’s Lando Norris.
However, after winning the previous 14 races before racing around the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Red Bull responded by triumphing in the final seven grands prix. They would, therefore, retain the Constructors’ Championship at a canter with Verstappen and Perez atop the Drivers’ Championship standings.
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Hamilton came third, 51 points behind Perez, and shared his fears for the following season after the final race in Abu Dhabi. Asked by Sky Sports about next year, he replied: “At this moment, I don’t really know.
“Red Bull won by 17 seconds and have not touched the car since August. So, you can pretty much guess where they’re going to be next year.” Hamilton added: “[Red Bull] haven’t even developed their car since August. It’s definitely a concern.”
He did not sound overly optimistic about Mercedes’ prospects of closing the gap to Red Bull in 2024. “We have learned a lot about the car, and it’s just down to the team now. They know what they need to do. Whether or not we will get there, we will see,” he added.
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Speaking to “Motor Sport” during that same season-ending race weekend, Horner confirmed Hamilton’s concerns. “Thankfully, we had a good base to start because if we’d have been consumed with the very limited amount of wind tunnel we had in terms of developing RB19, it would really compromise us very badly on to RB20.
“But because we had a great starting block with ’19 enabled us to apply the limited amount of resource that we had available to RB20 reasonably early for us, while spinning both plates. That’s why development has been very frugal on this car really since the middle of the year.”
“Next year’s car is an evolution. Obviously, you start to get into diminishing returns. But you know, the team have done an outstanding job this year. It’s the most successful car ever in F1’s history. And they can all be very, very proud of that.”
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