Mid-season break a chance for dominant Red Bull to turn focus to 2024

Christian Horner has vowed Red Bull’s crushing domination will continue in the second half of the season without upgrading their record-breaking race machine.

As Formula One heads into its mandated mid-season break he also revealed his design team are already turning their attention to 2024.

The architect of Red Bull’s remarkable winning streak was speaking after lead driver Max Verstappen romped to his eighth successive victory in Belgium on Sunday.

Among a raft of other headline-making statistics it is the first time an F1 team has won 13 races on the trot.

The Dutchman also won the Saturday sprint race and teammate Sergio Perez notched up his best result in seven races, giving the team their fifth 1-2 of the year.

“We’ve won 20 of the last 21 races,“ said Horner. “To go in, unbeaten, to the summer break is mind-blowing.

“Everyone deserves a well-earned break to recharge their batteries and then come back hard. Let’s see if we can keep this amazing momentum rolling for as many races as we can.”

But in the same breath he admitted that aside from race-specific tinkering there will be no more car improvements this year.

Resources have to be husbanded carefully given Red Bull face a development disadvantage as champions and a further 10 per cent loss in R&D time courtesy of their $7 million fine for breaking the spending rules in 2021.

“We have six months to come up with another car [design] and with a lot less wind tunnel time so we’ve got to be selective how we utilise our resources,” Horner added.

He, more than anyone, in this revelatory, record-breaking year, will know the price of not having half an eye on the future.

In 2013 Red Bull’s four-year title-winning spell ended with a flourish as his lead driver Sebastian