Horner Expresses Shock Over Mercedes Sticking To 'Failed' Car Concept

Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 23:00

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Red Bull's team principal, Christian Horner, reflected on Mercedes's 2023 car and expressed surprise at seeing the 2022 concept.

The Mercedes F1 team made a mistake at the beginning of 2022 when they built a car that wasn't the most suitable for the newly introduced regulations.

The team had a car that was competitive on some tracks, mainly towards the end of the season, like Sao Paulo, where they achieved a one-two.

On the other hand, Silver Arrows lacked a lot of pace to teams like Red Bull and Ferrari on most circuits, and in general, it didn't seem like the German team had a complete understanding of their own car.

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It was half expected that Mercedes would change the concept going into the 2023 season to be more similar to Red Bull and include the big side pods, but the team decided to continue with its older concept.

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner mentioned the team from Milton Keynes fully expected others to catch up this season. Apparently, they were surprised to see Mercedes with the 2022 concept of the car.

"I think what surprised us was that Ferrari had a very good car last year. And the natural evolution of that we expected it to be a very tight contender this year. We were very surprised to see Mercedes sticking with the concepts that had clearly failed the previous year."

It was clear from the first race of the 2023 season that Silver Arrows failed their mission yet again and would not be able to challenge Red Bull with the car they had.

Both Red Bull drivers finished the first race in Bahrain about 40 seconds ahead of the Mercedes drivers, which is an enormous margin for a team that wants to challenge for the title.

Mercedes later decided to switch to Red Bull's concept but could not quite catch up with the team from Milton Keynes until the end of the season.

Going into 2024, the team principal of the German team, Toto Wolff, promised significant changes to the Mercedes car. Do you believe Silver Arrows could possibly bring the challenge to Red Bull in 2024?