This weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix will see Ferrari challenge Red Bull the closest, according to Christian Horner, who has ruled out Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.
The main focus of the F1 season has been team principal Horner, who was the target of an internal probe in February following allegations of “coercive behavior” toward a female colleague, which he refutes. Horner was later cleared.
Red Bull, the team that has won the last two constructors’ titles, has dominated the first part of the season, thus this hasn’t affected their development on the track.
Max Verstappen is aiming for a fourth world championship in a row, and he appears to be headed in that direction after leading teammate Sergio Perez to third place in three of the first four races of 2024.
Only Verstappen’s early retirement in Australia, where Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished first and second, respectively, stopped Verstappen’s progress. In actuality, Sainz is the only driver to have won a race in the previous 22 apart from Verstappen.
Speaking prior to the Chinese Grand Prix, Horner believed that the Italian team would be Red Bull’s main competitors in the future.
Yes, Horner told The Mirror, “I think Ferrari was competitive at that circuit [Melbourne] and we saw on Friday that their race pace was competitive.”
And we anticipate that they will be our main rival there in China.
It’s a reliable circuit. The first corner never ends, and the front left tire always suffers greatly from it as well as the high-speed turns onto the back street.
There’s also a sprint race, the first of the year, which presents another difficulty. Considering the abundance of points at hand, it should be interesting to watch how that plays out.
Horner’s decision to ignore Hamilton and Mercedes comes at a bad moment for them, since the British driver is currently eighth in the standings.
Hamilton hasn’t won a race since December 2021, and neither the seven-time world champion nor teammate George Russell have achieved a podium finish this season.
After lamenting his team’s performance in Japan, Hamilton, who has finished seventh, seventh, DNF, and ninth this year, is looking for a significant turn-around as he travels to China.
“I had to run through two really awful sets of hard tires,” Hamilton remarked following his ninth-place finish at Suzuka.
“Today was really difficult.” When Charles (Leclerc) came around the outside in the beginning, I believe I suffered some damage.
During the first stint, I had severe understeer and was unable to turn the car. The medium tire performed significantly better than the hard one.
“Looking back, we should have kept two medium tires, but the car wasn’t great today overall.”
