Horner worried about potential gap between Renault and Mercedes engines

With Ferrari, Red Bull has appeared since the beginning of the era of V6 turbo/hybrid Power Units, as the only one capable of contesting, intermittently, the supremacy of Mercedes.

With a block Renault (still rebadged Tag Heuer at Milton Keynes) in progress, Christian Horner's team hopes to show itself even more at the level of the Silver Arrows in 2018.

But the British boss nevertheless admits that given the expected performance of the German block, the 2018 version of the Losange engine, in its specification defined for Melbourne, is still a notch below.

“If the rumors and figures put forward during the winter on their new engine (nearly 1000 hp) prove true, the deficit will only have widened and this is a source of concern, specifies Horner.

Renault has its factory team with its own requirements. They had a tough winter in terms of reliability, but we hope to see some performance. »

At the end of the 2017 season, the French clan admitted to having sometimes taken too many risks in the search for performance, and logically aimed to find optimal reliability during the off-season.

Verstappen sets a threshold

In the Red Bull clan, we remain optimistic about the chances of the RB14s being in the running for the leading roles against the Mercedes W09 and Ferrari SF71H. Max Verstappen believes that a gap of three or four tenths in qualifying would constitute a maximum limit to hope to fight in the race.

“The objective is clearly to be in this range of three tenths, comments the Dutchman. Ferrari's times are good, that's for sure. But we knew they would be strong, and that will be the case with Mercedes. We just try to be close to them. »