‘Red Bull RB15 is a tricky car at the moment’

Christian Horner admits Red Bull are still trying to find the sweet spot with their RB15, which he has has “quite a narrow” operating window.

AlthoughRed Bullfinished on the podium in Australia, they were third best at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

Ferrari emerged as the team to beat before car troubles and driver errors cost them, handing Mercedes the 1-2 on Sunday night.

Max Verstappenwas Red Bull’s best placed driver in fourth whilePierre Gaslybagged his first points for the senior team with a P8.

“It’s a tricky car at the moment,” said Horner. “Our operating window looks quite narrow and Max has coped with that extremely well.

“It’s been harder for Pierre. That will come, I’m sure.

“When you’re chasing issues like this and you’re moving a problem around, it usually points the finger in other areas.

“We’ve got a lot of good data from this weekend and are starting to understand areas we need to be focusing on.”

He added: “Ferrari look like they’ve selected another gear.

“It’s been enormously impressive, their straightline performance.

“We’ve got more to sort out on the chassis side. The engine’s continuing to make good progress.

“So our focus is very much on trying to understand the tyre issues and get the car into a good operating window.”

Verstappen will be action in the RB15 at the Bahrain circuit on Tuesday, testing for Red Bull before handing the car over to Dan Ticktum for Day Two.

“It’s perfect timing,” Horner said of the test.

“We need to find more performance. Ferrari were very strong here this weekend. Mercedes got lucky with a one-two, but Ferrari were the dominant team.

“Trying to understand where are our strengths/weaknesses to Ferrari here is quite important.

“Once you get into a window, particularly with these tyres… they looked a different team to two weeks ago. And vice versa with Mercedes.

“It’s just understanding what the magic password is.”

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