While Horner’s comments should be tempered, given his increasingly adept use
of mind games this pre-season as Red Bull’s problems have continued, the
pattern which emerged from testing was that Mercedes power is dominant, and
the works team as well as Williams appear to be at the front of that group.
“From what we can see at the moment, all the Mercedes powered teams are in
pretty decent shape and we’re not,” said Horner. “We’re on the back foot,
and have a lot of ground to catch up.”
Red Bull’s torrid pre-season has been well documented, with Sebastian Vettel
completing just 155 laps in 12 days of testing. He even had to push his car
back to the pits on the penultimate day, when he did not manage to complete
a single lap. Their struggles even prompted Red Bull’s senior adviser, Dr
Helmut Marko, to suggest they may fail to make up the ground on their rivals
all season.
Although Horner has been publicly supportive of Renault’s efforts to solve the
problems with their power unit – which mainly revolve around their use of
electrical energy, a fundamental part of the new hybrid engines for this
season – he clearly believes the majority of the issues lie with Renault
rather than Red Bull.
“Adrian [Newey] and his technical have done an excellent job. We had some
cooling issues early on, but we’ve worked hard to address those. The main
bit we need to get on top of is with our engine partner.
“They [Renault] will catch up, they quite simply have to. We would hope by the
time we arrive back in Europe that we’re seeing significant improvements.”
Horner added that Mercedes have shown good early form because “they invested
more” and “they invested earlier”. He also said that based on their scrutiny
of the RB10 on the circuit, and the feedback of the drivers, they have built
a “fundamentally strong” car, despite being off the pace in testing.
“We’ve got to sort some elements out, some of which are beyond our control,”
he added.
Defending his team’s work in pre-season, Horner told Telegraph Sport in an
interview last week: “You don’t become idiots overnight. We’ve got a very
strong group of people here.”
Meanwhile, Horner said this season presents an “opportunity” for Vettel to
show what he can do in an uncompetitive car, but added that he thinks the
26-year-old has nothing to prove.
“I don’t know what he has to do for people to accept [him],” Horner argued.
“Even if he had retired at the end of last year, he has done enough to have
demonstrated that he is one of the greats.
“We field two cars each season and we haven’t finished first and second in the
world championship each year.
“Of course, this is an opportunity for him where he’s going to be on the back
foot in the first few races, but I’m sure he’ll rise to that. But of course,
it’s an opportunity.”