Christian Horner has acknowledged that Red Bull's current difficulties with car handling have been developing for more than a year.
In recent races, the team has been hard at work retracing its steps in car development to pinpoint where things began to go wrong.
"We've traced the development history back and it turned out that the first mistake we made was with a floor upgrade in 2023 in Barcelona," team principal Horner told Auto Motor und Sport.
"That was also the grand prix from which Checo (Perez) started having problems with the car. We just didn't take it so seriously because Max (Verstappen) kept winning," Horner added.
Team advisor Dr Helmut Marko also shared: "We took a really wrong turn this year in Imola."
Last weekend in Baku, Red Bull introduced two new floor specifications designed to resolve some of the identified issues that have been affecting car handling and setup.
"I think this was a step forward, yes," commented Verstappen, though he admitted that a setup mistake made after qualifying hampered his performance in Azerbaijan.
On Sunday, McLaren overtook Red Bull and now holds a 20-point lead in the constructors' standings, leading Marko to admit that making up the gap before the end of the championship would be a challenge.
However, Verstappen remains optimistic. "I'm sure we can do better," he said. "The fight is not over yet."
"We didn't win the race, but we were in the battle with Checo. If we keep improving the car step by step, especially after what we found out in Monza, we can be in contention for victories all the time," Verstappen concluded.
