Horner: "We have a good car, but Mercedes is still a favourite"

The expectations of Red Bull Racing are high for the start of next season. The season starts with two races on the Spielberg circuit and on that circuit Red Bull has won the last two years. On two occasions Max Verstappen managed to get away with the victory. Christian Horner expresses his expectations at the Formula 1 Café, at Ziggo Sport.

"We're now entering our second year with Honda and there's a great atmosphere within the team. We were ready for it in Australia, but then it didn't happen. For now, however, Mercedes is still the favourite. Lewis Hamilton had a strong winter and is of course reigning world champion, he is simply the favourite. I do think we have a good car, we perform constantly and Max drives better than I've ever seen", Horner sees. 

This year's battle with Mercedes

"It really feels like we're best prepared for a season in the V6 era." In recent years it always seemed that Red Bull had closed the gap to Mercedes, but in the end during the first Grands Prix it turned out that Mercedes was still the clear first team. Horner hopes to change that this year. "I sincerely hope we can fight with Mercedes this year."

For Austria, Red Bull is bringing several updates to the car. Horner explains that those updates were already planned. "Before we all went into lockdown, there were a number of updates under development, because normally you work one to two months ahead. Updates for several races were cancelled, so now each team is going to take all the updates with them for the first race in Austria," says Horner.