Red Bull in “damage limitation” mode

The Bahrain Grand Prix almost resulted in a similar outcome for Red Bull as the previous week, with Daniel Ricciardo narrowly missing a podium finish by a few tenths, which seemed a distant possibility at the start, as the Australian started 13th on the grid after his 10-place penalty. Distant also because the Red Bulls didn’t seem to be in contention for better than the second half of the top 10.

« We made the most of what we could do this weekend, » he tells Autosport. « For Daniel, finishing so close to the podium after starting 13th was phenomenal driving. Seb had a difficult afternoon, and it wasn’t a good weekend for him. He had problems in qualifying, and he felt his car was slower on the straights during the race. Scoring a few points is, in many ways, damage limitation. »

However, for Christian Horner, the director of the Austrian team, the performance of the Mercedes was very impressive: « I think for the first time, we saw their true pace […] and they were not holding back. » The Mercedes, in fact, opened up a gap of nearly a minute after the first forty laps of the race, before the safety car came in, then 25 seconds in the ten laps that followed the restart, helped, it is true, in both cases by the battles between the Williams and the Force India for the 3rd position.

He continues: « This circuit has always been considered as Mercedes-typed, and it’s no coincidence that, at one point, there were seven Mercedes engines in the top 8. » The Sakhir circuit is a fast track, and the Mercedes turbo hybrid V6 is considered by many players and observers as the fastest and most efficient. The characteristics of the Bahraini layout would therefore tend to overexpose them.

« But we can also be encouraged because we were quite competitive at the end of the race, especially with Daniel, » he said, while remaining realistic: « But it’s not an insignificant gap that we need to close to catch up with the Mercedes. »