Mercedes says it is wary Max Verstappen will prove a “formidable opponent” in 2020, believing the Red Bull driver will be tough to beat in the opening races.
On Tuesday, Formula 1 revealed the first eight rounds of this year’s revised calendar, which will begin with back-to-back grand prix’s in Austria before a single race in Hungary.
Both circuit’s have favoured Red Bull in recent years, with Verstappen triumphing in Austria in both 2018 and 2019, while he scored his maiden pole position at the Hungaroring last season.
With this in mind, Mercedes technical director James Allison identified Verstappen as the German manufacturer’s biggest threat at the start of the campaign.
“There’s no doubt that Max is going to be a formidable opponent for us this year,” Allison said on the F1 Nation podcast.
“Ferrari too showed glimpses of some form in pre-season testing, [but] we would imagine that Max will again be strong in Austria because Red Bull are always super-pumped up there – and they’ve got a bit of a track record.”
Allison is fully aware that Mercedes has suffered setbacks in the past two Austrian Grand Prix’s that resulted in bringing to an end its 100% win record at the Red Bull Ring from 2014-2017.
Both cars retired through mechanical failures in 2018, where the same year a strategic error by the team had cost Lewis Hamilton dearly while leading the race, before cooling issues left them out of contention for victory last year.
“Our campaign in Austria last year was hampered by our own mistakes on the cooling side, which meant that we were chugging around way off the actual natural pace of the car,” Allison recalled.
“And the year before, [we were] hampered by some unreliability and rather clumsy moves around the Safety Car. So I think we’re all looking forward to getting to Austria, and maybe showing a bit more of what we’re capable of than the slight underperformance that we put in in the previous two seasons.”
