Mercedes would have to “f**k up” on a big scale for Red Bull

Christian Horner says that Mercedes would have to “f**k up” on a large scale for there to be any chance of Red Bull challenging for the world championship.

Red Bull have come into a period of impressive performances through Max Verstappen after he took wins at two of the past four races in Austria and Germany and claimed pole at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
 
But team principal Horner believes that Verstappen’s chances aren’t very realistic with Lewis Hamilton’s 69-point advantage.
 
Horner said to Motorsport.com: “Lewis has close to a three-race advantage with nine races to go, so he would have to not turn up for three races.
 
“It is hugely unlikely. They [Mercedes] would have to f**k up by gargantuan proportions not to win this championship.

“I think our target in the second half of the year is very much to close that gap.
 
“And as we get more performance on the car as Honda continues to make progress, this is very much a building year as we transition into 2020.”
 
The Briton says that updates brought in at the Austrian Grand Prix has helped balance the car after the new regulations for this year affected the way the team ‘worked with the front wing’.
 
“I think that the regulations change over the winter definitely did hurt us with the way we worked the front wing,” added Horner. 

“But I think as the team have gained more understanding and have been able to use these new regulations better, we have been able to recover balance and characteristics of the car.

“Of course, that was combined with a tyre construction change as well, and those two elements hit us quite hard on the chassis side over the winter.

“But I think definitely we have made really good progress there in the last few months and hopefully with the development we see in the second half of the year, we have got a good vein of development that should continue to develop that.”