Red Bull boss Christian Horner: Underestimating Ferrari would be foolish

Red Bull

Red Bull: Underestimating Ferrari would be foolish

The Scuderia weren't particularly impressive in testing in Barcelona

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 3 March 2020 11:09

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes it would be foolish for them to underestimate Ferrari ahead of the upcoming opening race to the 2020 F1 season in Australia.

It took Ferrari until the last day of testing in Barcelona to post a lap time which displayed their potential top speed, but Mattia Binotto recently said he doesn’t believe they are in a position in win in Melbourne yet.

For Horner, though, he isn’t looking into testing performance too much.

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“That is always the dangerous thing about pre-season testing, trying to draw too many conclusions,” said the Brit.

“Ferrari look understated at the last test but they are starting to wind it up and I think it would be foolish to underestimate them going to Melbourne.

“Mercedes are the reigning six-time World Champions and very much the favourites.

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“Their form has always looked strong here and you want to have your issues in testing not when you are racing so winter testing can sometimes be a little deceptive but I think it will be the same teams fighting at the sharp end of the grid this year.”

Max Verstappen echoed the comments of his team principal, saying Melbourne is a completely different prospect than testing in Barcelona.

“I have done this six times now and testing doesn’t give you anything in terms of real lap times as Melbourne is so different so I prefer to wait and see what happens in Melbourne,” the Dutchman explained.

“Not only in Melbourne as it can be a funny GP where things can go really well or not.

“You need a few GPs to get a good read of it. I just don’t focus on it too much here.

“The most important thing for us here is just to test all different kind of things on the car.”