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          Christian Horner: Red Bull baffled by Baku tyre issues

          ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/Getty Images

          Christian Horner says Red Bull needs to work to understand its tyre issues after struggling for pace at the Grand Prix of Europe in Baku.

          Red Bull was forced to adopt a two-stop strategy in Azerbaijan due to high rear tyre degradation. Daniel Ricciardo, who faded during the race after starting second, and Max Verstappen pitted early for soft tyres before moving on to the medium compound later in the race, a tyre many did not expect to see during the grand prix.

          Red Bull then found pace on the harder compound, with Ricciardo and Verstappen both passing the Mercedes-powered Force India of Nico Hulkenberg late on, something Horner admits was strange.

          "It's a difficult one to understand really," he told Sky Sports F1 after the race. "Just on the super-soft and the soft tyre we had very high degradation and couldn't do the lap times. So then we went onto the hardest compound and the car came alive on that compound, Max has set the third fastest lap of the race so a bit of homework [needed] to understand what exactly has happened there."

          Horner reckons the teams low downforce set-up had something to do with the lack of pace.

          "We're on a very fine edge trimming the downforce out of the car. The first few laps we turned the tyre on very well. Daniel said 'I was easily able to stay with Nico, I was cruising, and then suddenly 'bang,' the rear tyres get into a lot of trouble.'

          "You find that your window by doing that is very narrow, I think today's temperature, trimming the downforce out of the car, perhaps the car then sliding a little too much has caused the rear graining. As soon as you get into that you're in a world of pain."

          When put to him that the three compounds appeared to be setting similar times during the grand prix, Horner replied: "Absolutely, that was the analysis we had. Very, very strange, last week it was too cold, this week it was too hot.

          "It's something that we've missed in the last few grands prix that we've got to get on top of because we've qualified well here, and in the first two laps Ricciardo had no problem going with Nico and then suddenly bang the tyres have gone off. It looks more accentuated on our car than any others."

          Pirelli's chart below shows how Red Bull's drivers were two of three to use the medium compound during the race.