Red Bull must find half a second to catch Mercedes

The Australian Grand Prix was rich in lessons about the early season hierarchy. Mercedes, and especially Ferrari, have slightly pulled ahead at the top of the favorites, leaving Red Bull a step behind, unable to compete for the podium on a regular basis.

Christian Horner and his team have therefore taken advantage of the fifteen days between the inaugural race and the next Grand Prix in China to analyze their difficulties and precisely quantify their lag behind their main competitors: “I don’t think we are that far behind,” states the Briton. “Compared to Mercedes, we need to find half a second. Ferrari was very impressive and they probably had the fastest car in Melbourne.”

Red Bull would therefore be the third force on the grid according to Horner, who has confidence in his team to improve throughout the season: « We had the third fastest car in Melbourne and we need to find a good half-second to join the battle at the front. Max [Verstappen] put pressure on Kimi [Räikkönen] the whole race but we didn’t have the pace to catch Vettel and Hamilton ahead. It’s still very early in the season and the new regulations are not yet fully understood. We have chosen a different concept and I believe we have good development capabilities. I’m sure we can build on these foundations for the upcoming races. »

However, the problem seems to have already been identified at Red Bull, and the engineers are already hard at work to resolve it: « The problem is that the car seems quite sensitive in dirty air. And we haven’t seen Max’s potential in clean air. That’s the usual problem. And seeing the amount of notes Adrian Newey has taken, I’m sure he’s going to be very busy, » concluded Horner.