Red Bull to bring further upgrades after Spain but Horner admits Ferrari could have the edge at Monaco

Despite ongoing reliability issues, Red Bull Racing have won three out of the opening five races this season.



All have come courtesy of reigning World Champion Max Verstappen, who currently sits second in the drivers’ championship.



The Dutchman is 19 points behind Charles Leclerc, who leads the standings having won two races himself this season.



READ: Ferrari to gain half-a-second via Barcelona upgrades



Red Bull’s biggest burden this season so far has been their reliability; Verstappen has retired twice already this year due to issues with his RB18.



The Dutchman faced yet more problems at the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, missing the majority of Friday free practice at the Miami International Autodrome as a result.



Sergio Pérez has also suffered from reliability this season, again as recently as Miami.



The Mexican was hunting down Carlos Sainz for third, before a sensor issue saw his hopes of a podium vanish.



Whilst reliability has been an ongoing problem, straight-line speed certainly hasn’t been.



The RB18 has been unstoppable in a straight-line, making it easy for the two drivers to overtake and defend.



Ferrari’s car on the other hand, appears to be better suited to cornering rather than straight-line speed.



Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, believes the team with the advantage will vary from “circuit to circuit”.



“I think we went into this campaign with that (straight-line speed) in mind and I think Ferrari have designed their car to optimise around another area,” Horner told Sky Sports F1.







“I think that will move from circuit to circuit. Maybe in Monaco they’ll, for example, have a significant advantage.



“We’ve got to make sure that we’re versatile with those kinds of tracks coming up.”



Red Bull are set to bring an upgrade package to this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, with RacingNews365.com technical analyst Paolo Filisetti believing the RB18 will be seven kilograms lighter.



Horner revealed that the team will also be bringing further upgrades later in the year, towards the latter end of the summer.



“You saw in Imola how quickly things can move around and I think we’ve got some interesting races coming up,” Horner continued,



“The car’s running well. We’ve hopefully got some developments coming later in the summer that will help as well, [as] we need to save a little bit of weight.”



Both Verstappen and Pérez have been making the vast majority of their time up down the straights, with Horner admitting that the car needs improvements for the slower corners.



“We need to improve [in] the slow stuff (corners). We need to lose a couple of kilos off the car; tyre degradation is then the result of weight,” he said.



“It’s all those little incremental gains that you’re always chasing,” he concluded.
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