Red Bull “wouldn’t write off Mercedes” in title fight

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In the round-up: Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says his team’s recovery in the championship shows why the threat of Mercedes should not be underestimated.

In brief

“Things can turn around very quickly” – Horner

Having lagged off the front-running pace in the opening races, Mercedes were quick enough to trouble Mercedes in Spain thanks to their latest upgrade.

Horner said he isn’t ruling them out of getting into contention for the championship, pointing out how Red Bull recovered quickly after a series of retirements in the opening rounds.

“It shows how quickly things can swing,” he said. “I think after Australia we came home 40 points behind, and we lead by six going into Monaco a couple of races later. So it just shows in Formula 1 how quickly things can swing and change.

“That’s why I wouldn’t write off Mercedes with the amount of points still available. And we know Ferrari’s got a very quick car, so things can turn around very quickly.”

We chose wrong strategy – Schumacher

Mick Schumacher says Haas slipped up by sticking to a two-stop strategy in the Spanish Grand Prix. He failed to score after starting ninth.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said after the race. “We had a good start, we were in a good position. But the tyres just didn’t last as we expected them to.

“We probably then took the wrong decision in staying on ‘Plan A’ and not diverting to something else, which was then in that case a three-stop strategy. So quite gutting but we we will analyse it as a team and we Will come back stronger as a team.”

Schumacher ran as high as sixth at one stage before slipping to 14th at the finish.

“It was very fun to be up there with everybody and seeing that we had such a good start,” he said. “And obviously it was frustrating that we didn’t have the pace to stay there.”

Vettel victim of robbery

A bag belonging to Sebastian Vettel was stolen in Barcelona yesterday morning following the Spanish Grand Prix, his Aston Martin team have confirmed.

“He tried to find it by using his iPhone to track his earphones which were in his bag,” an Aston Martin spokesperson explained, “but when he located his earphones he found them abandoned and was therefore unable to locate his stolen bag.”

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Comment of the day

Scott Dixon’s record-breaking Indianapolis 500 pole position lap impressed Mark:

The look of disbelief on Palou’s face said it all. He laid down an incredible lap that looked like it couldn’t be beat. Then Dixon went out and crushed it!

Dixon is just so calm and collected his methodology reminds me of Schumacher in his precision and consistency. An incredible drive, those cars were fast but on the edge in the turns the whole time.

Honourable mention to Grosjean, he hung that car out there even though it was a handful. Can’t wait for the race it should be exciting.
Mark in Florida

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Driftin and Mallesh Magdum!

On this day in motorsport

  • 30 years ago today Al Unser Jnr won the Indianapolis 500 for the first time in thrilling style, denying Scott Goodyear by four-hundredths of a second in the race’s closest ever finish

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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23 comments on “Red Bull “wouldn’t write off Mercedes” in title fight”

  1. “Having lagged off the front-running pace in the opening races, Mercedes were quick enough to trouble Mercedes in Spain thanks to their latest upgrade.”

    What does garbage even mean? Might want to actually read your stuff before you push the little green button.

    1. @darryn “The Person Who Never Makes a Mistake Will Never Make Anything”
      While it’s a positive thing to report mistakes, we all make them, it’s always nice when one don’t crush people’s confidence by being too harsh.

    2. Pedro Andrade
      24th May 2022, 5:03

      @darryn what a pathetic, rancorous, comment. Everyone makes mistakes, what’s the point of being bitter about such a small thing?

    3. Pointing out the Particulars of Omissions Orthographic
      is the Pedantic Pursuit of the Obtrusively Scholastic

    4. @darryn

      What does garbage even mean?

      What does this garbage even mean, you mean?

    5. Garbage means people like you on Wikipedia.

    6. This person, if you’ve been on this site long enough, is a (insert word for person who goes on comments sections and sites to just ridicule and stir up a mess). Best ignored. I know I am not taking my own advice to ignore such people but given he’s ruffled a few feathers here I just needed to let you know it’s typical of him to do this. Trust me, ignore him, he’ll go away. @abdelilah @uneedafinn2win @david-br

      1. If I understood right, the word you’re using is also for a creature around 3 meters tall in the harry potter universe, which definitely appears in the first movie.

    7. Yeah, i was about to make the same point.
      I think the author meant to say – Mercedes were quick enough to trouble Red bull –

  2. “He tried to find it by using his iPhone to track his earphones which were in his bag,” an Aston Martin spokesperson explained, “but when he located his earphones he found them abandoned and was therefore unable to locate his stolen bag.”

    Inspector Seb at it again!

    In all seriousness I hope he didn’t have anything of sentimental value or passport in there, you like to think it isn’t the case but sometimes it can feel like there are naff people everywhere. The F1 Paddock may be seen as a full of ‘sharks’ but peoples bags should be pretty safe. The most rubbish part is most of the stuff is probably of no use to anyone other than Seb.

    1. The article mentions “documents” @bernasaurus, so I presume it’s exactly stuff like his passport/ID card and drivers licences that would have been in the bag.

      1. Be awkward if a person at RBR were discovered with a copy of Seb’s license and sidepod doodles. ;-)

  3. While things can generally change quickly in F1, I doubt Merc could join the WDC & WCC battles anymore.
    They’d need quite a few wins with RBR & Ferrari, but especially VER-LEC suffering points losses simultaneously, so easier said than done.

    Easy to judge, but perhaps he should’ve been more attentive to his surroundings or simply avoided scooter riding in the city center in the first place.
    Norris, Leclerc, & now him, I wonder who’s the next regular driver to get robbed as these individuals seem to be an easy target for thievery.

    I’m still surprised how the Montmelo circuit was totally unprepared for a sellout or generally well-attended event & thus didn’t take any precautionary measures.
    From memory & knowledge, nothing similar has happened in Montmelo before like with Circuit Paul Ricard in its comeback season or Silverstone & Spa in the distant past, etc.

    Or perhaps simple whichever De Vries or Vandoorne attends with Merc & Piastri only if both were unavailable for any reason.
    However, for now, I’m positive Norris can compete.

    1. @jerejj – While the distance is large but there is only 6 races done and still 16 togo if Mercedes wins 6 after this one they are with Max and Charles on top. Clearly they still have a good chance.

      1. It would be dependent on Mercedes now being able to quickly improve another 3 tenths to half a second to be able to get on the pace of the top 2 teams though @macleod. Not sure I see that happening earlier than in another 3-6 races by which time it will already be a VERY steep uphill climb (or Ferrari and Red Bull really suffering from reliability and having to take penalties, as @jerejj mentions)

        1. I think the next task for the Mercedes is cooling. Their engine is obviously capable of a lot more, but its limited by cooling. When they solve that issue, they will be unstopable. The same for the other Mercedes powered cars, their engines wont have their restrictions lifted until the parent team opens up the pace on its own engines.

          They will have gathered very useful data this weekend, which bodes well for the cooler circuits later in the year.

    2. @jerejj

      Norris, Leclerc, & now him, I wonder who’s the next regular driver to get robbed as these individuals seem to be an easy target for thievery.

      Jules Bianchi (RIP) was also mugged in the heart of Paris near Champs-Elysees in front of a luxury hotel. He was knockdown to the ground and held while the attackers stole his watch.
      In 2010, Bernie Ecclestone was brutally attacked and stripped of £200,000 worth of jewellery outside his Knightsbridge penthouse. Though Bernie being Bernie took advantage from the incident and made a deal with luxury swiss watch maker to show his battered face in a watch advert.

      1. @tifoso1989 Oh, I had forgotten these cases.

      2. @tifoso1989 I remember him being robbed (and mother-in-law hostage incident), but I didn’t realise he sold his image to a Hublot saying “if i’d wore my Tag Hauer they wouldn’t have bothered”.

        Is perhaps the most Bernie thing ever.

        Looking at the picture, they really did a number on him. Incredible that once again he managed to spin it into a positive for himself.

        1. @bernasaurus
          I still don’t understand how he sold his private jet making a net profit of around 10 millions in normal conditions where a used airplane is trading below its list price. I will not be surprised to know that he cut a deal and out-negotiated the criminals who kidnapped his mother-in-law :)

      3. These cases happened outside of the paddock. How was his bag not locked up in a locker of some sort? If it wasn’t, why wasn’t it in a secure area inside the AM garage. This is crazy. Feel bad for him. The one guy that is really trying to make the world a better place for everyone. Karma will hit that thief like a ton of bricks – or at least I hope so.

    3. Reliability will be a factor this season.

Comments are closed.