British former racing driver and current Team Principal of the Red Bull Formula One team, Christian Horner, feels that rivals Mercedes and Scuderia Ferrari will be able to recover the gap to the Austrian side and fight again for important positions against Red Bull in the 2023 Formula 1 championship.
The Red Bull team principal believes that the two top teams, which have shown disappointing performances in this start of new F1 campaign, will gradually begin to move up positions thanks to the updates expected for the following races, starting with the Australian Grand Prix, the third round of the championship. Red Bull began the new season in the best way possible, scoring two one-two finishes at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir and at the Jeddah Corniche circuit in Saudi Arabia, showing a level of competitiveness that, at least on paper, would leave some competitors hopeless for the rest of the year.
Scuderia Ferrari was expected to challenge for the titles in 2023, especially after the Maranello team focus on a lot on the development of the SF-23 car ever since the second part of the previous year. Not only has Ferrari not completely fixed its power unit reliability issues, but has even lost a lot of ground in terms of performance, with a deficit of one second per lap to Red Bull based on the data from the first two races.
Christian Horner, on the other hand, believes that Mercedes and Ferrari can return to competing for important objectives, thus reducing the current gap with the RB19.
“If we have room for improvement? It’s just the start of the season, we have 23 races on the calendar. There have only been two races completed. Australia will be in a week, we hope to find more performances from the car. We’re hearing about Mercedes updates and I’m sure Ferrari aren’t completely happy with their current position either – said Christian Horner, discussing with the media after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – “The regulations are still relatively new, so I expect to see a lot of progress and the grid to close up as the season progresses.” – he explained.
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In Europe a better show
“I think some races have been fantastic, we have seen a great Grand Prix between our two drivers: if you have two dominant cars and they can fight against each other, I think the show comes from itself. I have no doubt that the competition will come back quickly and aggressively, especially as we enter the European season and they bring updates.” – the Red Bull team principal concluded.
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