Red Bull Racing Christian Horner expects Scuderia Ferrari will be able to field a more powerful Formula 1 car in the 2023 championship.
The Maranello team started the previous season in an impressive manner, taking two race wins with Charles Leclerc after the first three rounds, but Ferrari’s initial challenge to Christian Horner-led Red Bull eventually petered out due to a series of strategical errors and power unit technical failures, which led the Italian side deciding to limit the power engine in the second part of the 2022 F1 campaign, which made it easy for Red Bull to win both titles.
However, reports from the Italian media inform the Ferrari power unit will be 30 horsepower better right from the start of the next championship. The same reports suggest the SF-23’s chassis will also be considerably lighter in 2023, which should allow Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to fight for the victory each race weekend and to mount a title challenge to Red Bull and Mercedes.
“In theory,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said in a recent interview for German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, “nobody can gain a lot of horsepower anymore. But Ferrari obviously had reliability problems last season. If they have fixed those problems, they can get more out of the same engine this year. That will inevitably lead to progress at Ferrari.” – the British former racing driver and current team boss of Red Bull pointed out.
At the same time, Red Bull’s power unit – the Honda-based ‘Red Bull Powertrains’ engine – allowed Max Verstappen to go on an easily secure the Formula 1 championship title last season, helped by some perfect race strategies from the Austrian side, even when the F1-75 car was able to match the Red Bull pace:
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“I think Ferrari has a lot more margin so we have to take that into account,” Horner said. “We all saw how they really scaled the engine back last year after their reliability issues. We only had minor reliability problems last year – certainly not to the extent of Ferrari.” – Christian Horner concluded.
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