SHANGHAI: Champions Red Bull believe they can pick up the pace and take the fight to dominant Mercedes now that Formula One is heading back to Europe after the first four ‘flyaway’ races in Asia and the Middle East.
Team principal Christian Horner kept calm after Mercedes chalked up their fourth victory in a row, and third successive one-two finish, in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix won by Lewis Hamilton.
“If we are going to make a championship of it, we’ve got to take the fight to them,” Horner, whose team have just one podium finish so far this year, told Sky Sports television.
“We’re going to give it everything. I believe we can take the fight to them, we just can’t concede too much more ground.”
“We were 22km an hour slower on that kilometre straight today, that represented almost 100 metres that we’re giving away on the straight. That’s where we’ve got to improve.
“We know where we’ve got to fix our issues and hopefully there’s some steps towards that in Barcelona,” added the Briton.
The next race is the Spanish Grand Prix on May 11, with all the teams sure to bring upgrades after the three-week break.
Red Bull’s design wizard Adrian Newey skipped Shanghai to work on improvements and his rivals need no reminding about his reputation.
“The Red Bulls are famous for coming back and Newey is there,” Niki Lauda, non-executive chairman of the Mercedes team, warned on Sunday evening. “He wasn’t here so he sends something new for Barcelona, I’m afraid.”
Although Red Bull have now clawed their way back to second in the constructors’ standings, they are 97 points behind Mercedes. Vettel is fifth in the drivers’ championship, 46 adrift of Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg.
“Sebastian is an absolute fighter and we’ve seen that before… we’ll sit down and talk it through but he won’t need motivating, that’s for sure,” Horner said. (Reuters)
