F1 | Horner says Red Bull still has to fix its "shaky" rear wing problems
The Red Bull Team Principal spoke on the problems the RB16B showed during Free Practice in Qatar, with just two races to go in the race for the championships.
Live TV footage broadcasted from the official F1 transmission during sessions of practice gave the audience a glimpse of the top component of Red Bull’s rear wing quivering when DRS is open and the Red Bull car configured in low and medium set-ups of downforce, last week in Qatar.
The rear wing problems for Red Bull have plagued them throughout the American leg of the championship and have still yet to resolve them.
It forced them to run their biggest rear wing in Qatar, which was only previously used at Monaco and Mexico due to both venues needing a lot of downforce.
Watch the rear wing 👀 #QatarGP 🇶🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/N1ofpezHsy
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 19, 2021
The problem is allegedly caused by one actuator element not resisting the forces being put through it at the moment the RB16B faces DRS zones, provoking the shaking on the top element of the wing, and Christian Horner explained how the defect did not affect the team’s performance because they set up the car with a high downforce configuration: “That was our preferred wing and it was the setup direction we wanted to go in.” he expressed, as reported by motorsport.com.
Horner and Red Bull know that even though the Losail circuit was lenient for them to use their flawless setup version, the last two stops in the calendar waiting to decide the 2021 championship could be not so indulgent to them: “If the other wings are required in either Jeddah or Abu Dhabi, obviously we’ll need to have fixes in place to straighten them up, and the DRS mechanism.”
With less than 10 points separating the contenders for both the drivers and the constructors’ championships, Red Bull can’t give in to the beat of fighting Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton, but Horner is confident the wing on their challenger won’t be making the headlines. “I think from a reliability point of view it should be relatively straightforward to sort out those actuators. We’ve been using them for many years now, so it's not a new technology.”
The penultimate event of a memorable F1 season begins in eight days when practice takes place at the new circuit of Jeddah for the Saudi Arabian GP.
👀 Max Verstappen will be crowned world champion in Saudi Arabia if... #F1 pic.twitter.com/YjvggDMMpZ
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 22, 2021
