F1 | Horner says Red Bull will be back on track to fight for the Championship, after the summer break
Red Bull boss Christian Horner explained the difficult moment experienced by the team in the last two races, but he underlined how the summer break will allow the team and drivers to recover and to get back on on track stronger and faster.
With just one point gained in two Grands Prix, Red Bull lost the lead of the Constructors' Standings to Mercedes. A bitter defeat due to some controversial episodes: the one with Hamilton in England at the Copse, which saw a very strong impact (51G) of the Dutch driver against the barriers, fortunately ended without any serious consequence, and that of Bottas which triggered a series of DNFs at the start of the Hungarian GP.
Events in which Max Verstappen was the unlucky protagonist, who saw his advantage of 32 points over Hamilton in the Championship vanish following situations he was a mere spectator. The English driver is, in fact, now first with 8 points of advantage.
Christian Horner, team principal of the Milton Keynes team, took stock of the situation in view of the rest of the season, as he said to Motorsport.com.
"We've won six races in the first half of the year," - Horner said - "The races that we haven't scored at, if you look at Azerbaijan it wasn't Max's fault, Silverstone wasn't Max's fault, here wasn't Max's fault.
"So, our luck will change. Over the length of a season it will balance itself out and I'm looking forward to the second half of the year.
"I think the whole team's deserved a well-earned break and the drivers will get a good bit of time off and believe you me, we're going to come out fighting in the second half of this championship, so it's going to be interesting."
Horner also reffered to the problems that could cost Red Bull dearly in terms of engines. In Hungary, in fact, Max Verstappen was forced to change for the third time his Honda power unit, following the accident with Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone, and Sergio Perez will also be forced to use a third unit due to the contact at the Hungaroring.
"It is certainly not going to help," - Horner explained - "We've got a shed load of accident damage and potentially two engines that we've lost due to the result of actions of other drivers, so yeah, very frustrating.
"But you know what, we're within the difference of a first and second place in points difference.
"We go into the summer break, we've had some hugely bad luck the last couple of races, it's been pretty brutal in damage and parts and engines, but we'll brush ourselves down and we will come out fighting for the second half of this championship.
