I’ll be honest, I would have chalked Red Bull’s season up to pretty darn good if they could have been competitive with Ferrari but as it is, they may be reeling in Mercedes at a faster pace than anyone else having passed the Italian team on track mid-season.
Red Bull’s Christian Horner said:
“Our objective is to close that gap further to Mercedes ahead,” said Horner.
“You’ve always got to look ahead rather than behind.
“We’ve had great performance at a a variety of circuits from Austria to Silverstone to Budapest and Germany.
“They are four very different venues, four different surfaces and that bodes well for the second half of the season.
“There are some races on the calendar which will hopefully be favourable to us.”
Horner feels the team are just three tenths behind Mercedes at this point and it is a real hat tip to what the team have done with both chassis and power unit in the mid part of the season. Am I the only one who’s been impressed with the recent performance of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen? The podiums, the wins?
Fact is, Ferrari’s loss of James Allison and current friction point may be losing ground to Red Bull more so than not gaining enough on Mercedes. Clearly the German brand has been the class of the field and the target for all teams but losing ground to Red Bull with, arguably, and inferior power unit is not what the Scuderia had in mind.
Time will tell but beating Ferrari is one thing, beating Mercedes will be something else entirely.
Hat Tip: AUTOSPORT
Ahh mid season shutdown quotes about teams goals, you have to love them ;-)
Of course are after Mercedes, will they catch them? Not this season but its no surprise are after them now are the second strongest team on the grid logically.
They have always had a good chassis and we have listened far too much to Horner and Marko about how bad the power unit was. If you had customers/partners that bad mouthed you in such a way would you be in a hurry to spend millions on their behalf. The ball game has changed with Renault’s decision to come fully into F1 and Red Bull have benefited. Renault’s ICEs have for very many years been at the top of the ladder but they have generally aimed for driveability rather than outright power. Horner now claims that they lack 47 bhp… Read more »
It’s also entirely possible that RBR was working quietly behind the scenes, making their improvements at a pace that could fly under the radar until, suddenly…..SURPRISE! They’re past Ferrari, and Mercedes is the next target.