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Red Bull’s Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have different views on Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes’ 2023 hopes. The Silver Arrows struggled in the Bahrain season–opener with Hamilton finishing 50 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen.
The team struggled through pre-season testing and never looked capable of challenging the frontrunners over the first Grand Prix weekend. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff described the race as one of his “worst days in racing” and ordered engineers to come up with a new concept.
The poor performance has left Red Bull chief Marko to declare that Mercedes have ‘lost their way’. The Austrian has appeared to write off the German manufacturers’ title ambitions as he declared the squad had taken a “step backwards”.
He even ridiculed the team’s decision to change designs, suggesting it was unlikely they would solve their issues based on the last 12 months. Marko told OE24: “Mercedes has more than one obstacle, that’s clear.
“They have not made any progress compared to last season. If you look at the gaps, it was even a step backwards. They seem to have lost their way somewhere. I am curious to see what they will do now. Because of the cost cap, it’s such a problem to develop the car routinely.
“How do you put together a completely new car? Unless they make the golden shot, which I wouldn’t assume after recent experiences.” Post Bahrain, Wolff has revealed Mercedes already had a new blueprint being tested in the wind tunnel.
However, pundits have also discussed the difficulties around finding a solution and keeping within the budget cap rules.
But, Horner has refused to be sucked into a false sense of security as the team principal warned it was still early days. He described the campaign as a “marathon” and that he fully expected rival teams to come back hard in the coming weeks.
While discussing his main opposition for 2023, the 49-year-old still listed Mercedes as carrying a threat. He explained: “Let’s see in Jeddah in two weeks, Melbourne after that. I think once we’ve got two or three circuits under our belt, we’ll get a much better picture of strengths and weaknesses of our car and our opposition.
“People have a very short memory in this business. You’re as good as your last race. Today we’re heroes, tomorrow it could be Ferrari, it could be Mercedes, it could be Aston Martin.”
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