Christian Horner has maintained Red Bull are still in the championship hunt after Max Verstappen said he was not a contender to retain his crown.

The Dutchman was in a pessimistic mood come Saturday, having qualified seventh in Bahrain, leading him to state he was not in a position to fight for the world title, a comment Horner disagreed with.

Christian Horner maintains Red Bull title chances after Max Verstappen’s assessment

Verstappen said on Saturday that he did not consider himself a title contender, suggesting McLaren were “not my rivals right now” but team boss Horner has a different perspective on current events at Red Bull.

“Look, it was a bad weekend for the team,” Horner said after a grand prix weekend that saw the team earn 10 points. “Nothing went our way from the start of the race.

“We didn’t get off the line cleanly, and pit stops didn’t work well for us. And the tyre deg temperatures got very high. Certainly, the tyre deg, if you’ve got a well-balanced car, the whole thing just comes together that much easier.

“But it’s a 24-race championship. We’re eight points behind in the Drivers’ Championship, and we know we need to make progress very quickly.”

While the Drivers’ may be a tighter affair, Red Bull have already lost significant ground in the Constructors’ Championship. Their tally of 73 is fewer than half of McLaren’s after just four races.

Horner did at least state Red Bull understood the car’s problems but they were suffering with correlation issues.

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He added: “The problems are understood. I think the problem is that the solutions, with what we see within our tools, compared to what we’re seeing on track at the moment, aren’t correlating.

“I think that’s what we need to get to the bottom of. Why can we not see within our tools what we’re seeing on the circuit? And when you end up with a disconnect like that, you have to obviously unpick it.

“We’ve got a strong technical team that have produced some amazing cars over the last few years, and I’m confident that they’ll get to the bottom of this issue, but it’s literally, the tool isn’t replicating what we’re seeing on the track.

“And then it’s at that point, like turning the time on two different watches.”

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