Red Bull engineers will be "burning the midnight oil" to close gap to Mercedes

Red Bull Racing didn't have their strongest Friday ahead of the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix. Both Red Bull cars finished around half-a-second behind Lewis Hamilton, with Sergio Perez ahead of his Dutch teammate. Team boss Christian Horner says the engineers will be "burning the midnight oil" to get the car back in the perfect window. 

Grip levels 

Last year, the Turkish circuit had a fresh layer of asphalt and that produced an ice rink. Almost 12 months on, F1 returns and the track is much grippier which might have caught a few teams out. 

"We have got a balance mishmash at the moment. The circuit is a lot grippier than it was last year, we're just out of the window with Max on set-up. It'll be a busy night burning the midnight oil with the engineers and back in Milton Keynes as well. I think it is just understanding the issue, we know we've got a good car and it's just getting into that window which I don't think we hit today," Horner told Sky Sports. 

Hamilton takes penalty

Lewis Hamilton has been handed a ten-place grid penalty for the Turkish Grand Prix as Mercedes add a new ICE to his car. Horner gives his take on this issue for Hamilton. 

"It was probably from what we understand more of a forced-choice rather than a selective choice. you've seen they've had issues with other teams. It doesn't affect us and what we're doing. It shows you how tough it is getting to the end of the season on three engines, hopefully, we can do it on four. You can do all the sims and modelling you like, there's no such thing as total stability of a situation you have until the end of the year. let's wait and see. We've taken a penalty and got us into a good position. We've taken the additional parts as well, Lewis has done just the ICE. It's going to put a lot of stress on the rest of the components," Horner said.