Christian Horner has revealed that Max Verstappen is more involved on the engineering side 𓄧of Red Bull’s Formula 1 car than ever before, as the team comes to terms with its dramatic slump in performance.

Although Red Bull had been struggling for performance since a quarter of the way into the 2024 season, 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Verstappen was still able to consistently achꦆieve top results at the back end of last year to win his fourth consecutive title.

However, the pecking order has shifted🐬 further at the staꦰrt of the 2025 season, with McLaren stealing a march on its rivals and Red Bull losing more ground to other top teams.

Verstappen was never in the fight for a podium finish in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix and eventually finished more than 16 seconds off the lead in fourth after making a late move on 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Charles Leclerc, whꦦo was nursing a dam𝓀aged front wing endplate on his Ferrari.

Following the Chinese GP, Verstappen sits eight points adrift of McLaren’s 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lando Norris in the drivers’ standings, while Red Bull already faces a 25-point deficit to the British team i🉐n the constructors’ championship.

However, Horner says Red Bull is not willing to concede defeat in the tight fight just yet, explainꦛing how Verstappen is working closely with the engineers to drag the team out of its cu🤪rrent slump.

“It’s Race 2, you can’t be that defeatist. We are eight points behind in the constructors’ a🀅fter two races,” said Horner.

“There is everything to play for. If nothing el✨se, last year teaches you that you can start as strong as you like, but it’s about how you finish.

“We have great strength in depth in o🦹ur team. Everyone in the company knoꦐws we have got a bit of pace to find.

“We have tools and the people to do that. It’s about unpi𓄧cking it. We have the da✨ta from today.

"Max is w⛎orking harder than ever. He’s ꧋more integrated with the engineering group that I’ve ever seen.

“He seems to be enjoying ♚that aspect. He isn’t getting super stressed.

“Like any driver, ꦫhe is impatient for performance but he is working with the engineers saying ‘what about this?’”

Verstappen was unable to put up any fight to the Ferraris of Leclerc and168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: Lewis Hamilton on medium tyres, leaving him sixth in theও order in the first stint.

Hamilton dropped behind Verstappen on a two-stop strategy while the 27-year-old also✅ found a way past Leclerc with just four laps to run after doing a better job keeping his hard tyres alive.

While Horner admitted that the RB21 lacked pace on medium tyres, he was more impressed with how the car performed when Verstappen switched to the 💦hard compound for a long second stint.

“That first stint is where we⭕ gave away all of the time. Max came into the pit stop 18s behind Os🐭car, and at the chequered flag he was 16s behind,” he explained.

“On the🍃 ha⛎rd tyre, we were pretty competitive. So we need to understand.

“Maybe we o♏vercompensated based on the degradation that we saw yesterday.

“For sure, w🎐e need to find a✃ little bit more pace. Then, life is easier.

“[Max] drove another g♌reat race. He passed the Ferraris, he passed Chaꩵrles. A fourth-place finish is important points we know we’ve got plenty more to do.”