Why Red Bull fear Hamilton, not Leclerc as Verstappen’s main challenger in 2023

Ferrari were Red Bull’s closest challengers in 2022, before falling off in the second half of the season.

Red Bull won 10 of the remaining 11 races to dominate both championships.

Ferrari failed to make the most of their superior car in the first half of the year as reliability and poor strategy choices hampered their title challenge.

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Mercedes struggled with outright performance but slowly turned it around, with George Russell ending their win drought at the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Looking ahead to 2023, Marko explained why Red Bull are more fearful of Mercedes.

“I would say that we should fear Mercedes more [in 2023],” said Marko. “Mainly because they have an advantage over Ferrari in terms of strategy and reliability.”

Red Bull enjoyed their most dominant year to date in terms of race wins and points scored.

However, Marko dismissed suggestions that it was similar to Mercedes’ dominant start to the start of the V6 hybrid era in 2014.

“Our situation is certainly not like that of Mercedes at the beginning of the hybrid era,” Marko added.

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“We don’t have an immense lead with the engine right now. So that is very different. Mercedes had at least 50bhp margin over all the others back then.

“And we shouldn’t forget: 2022 has been the first year under this new set of regulations.

“Other teams have obviously seen what we have done with this year’s car. So I think it will definitely be much closer next season.”