Red Bull team head Christian Horner understands that his team cannot afford to take its foot off the throttle.
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Ferrari needs quick answers to its recent reliability issues, which included Carlos Sainz retiring in Baku on Sunday with a hydraulics failure, if it is not to let Red Bull run away with the championships. However, Red Bull team head Christian Horner understands that his team cannot afford to take its foot off the throttle and merely hopes that its adversary will continue to make mistakes.
Having taken pole position in the past four races, Charles Leclerc has not won a race since the championship’s third round in Australia. Worse, two engine problems (in Spain and Azerbaijan) combined with strategy blunders in Monaco have allowed major title contender Max Verstappen to open up a 34-point lead in the championship standings.
However, Red Bull team head Christian Horner understands that his team cannot afford to take its foot off the throttle and merely hopes that its adversary will continue to make mistakes. “I think they have a very fast car, certainly on a Saturday. I think on a Sunday, we’ve been equal to them at pretty much every race that we’ve been to this year. And I think that was the case again [in Baku] from what we can see in the early laps.” explained Horner.
“They will sort their problems out. I’ve got no doubts about that. But inevitably, I guess it means that there’ll be penalties further down the year in the back end of the year. Of course, there is a long, long way for this championship to play out. We’ve seen big swings in points over the last four or five races, and it just shows how quickly things can turn around.” expressed the Red Bull team principal.
Read more: Ferrari would rather prefer good performance than reliability which can be fixed.
Although Leclerc’s engine failure in Baku opened the door for Red Bull to record a fairly easy 1-2 finish, Horner believes that the pace of his team’s vehicle would have been enough to win even if the Monegasque had not encountered difficulty. “It’s a shame in many respects that the race didn’t pan out, because I do think we had a good race car. I think we would have beaten Charles strategically with the route that we picked as well. But we won’t know that.
As of now the championship looks very healthy at the moment for Red Bull but tables can turn quite quickly in this sport, so there’s much to look out for.
