Red Bull: We need to beat Mercedes in Monaco
Red Bull boss Christian Horner says his team need to beat championship rivals Mercedes in Monaco after losing out to the German marque at the last two races.
Despite starting the year with the faster package, Red Bull looks to have fallen behind Mercedes in recent races.
Lewis Hamilton has opened up a slender lead in the drivers’ standings over Max Verstappen after fending off the Dutch driver in Portimao and Spain.
As Formula 1 returns to Monte Carlo following a years absence, Horner believes the street circuit could play more to their liking with its car performing well around sector three in Barcelona – which is a good indicator for how well a car could go in Monaco.
“Sector 3 is sometimes gives a good indicative view of how the car could be in Monaco. Monaco hopefully we should be competitive,” Horner said, as quoted by F1.com.
“I think every Grand Prix this year bar Bahrain, there’s been less than a tenth of a second between ourselves and the pole position. It’s been phenomenally close, and Monaco, we need to make sure we beat Mercedes in Monte Carlo. But we know that that will be incredibly tough.”
While Hamilton’s points tally after four races represents his best-ever start to a campaign, Horner remains confident Red Bull can claw points back in the title battle.
“I think the Mercedes, we’ve seen it since Bahrain, I think that their race pace has been better than ours at each Grand Prix that we’ve seen so far, and I think that their degradation has been better than ours,” Horner added.
“So we knew these last two circuits [Spain and Portugal] would play to their strengths, they’ve done that but we’re an awful lot closer than we have been and I think that if we can find some more race pace, it’s still very, very tight between the two cars.”
Red Bull sits 29 points adrift of Mercedes ahead of this weekend’s race in the Principality, with the latter claiming the honours at three of the four grand prix’s so far this season.