Christian Horner’s admission: “Expected” fight from Mercedes and Ferrari

Red Bull remain unbeaten in 2023 after winning all 12 of the races so far, with Max Verstappen claiming 10 victories and teammate Sergio Perez winning the other two. 

The Milton Keynes outfit are steamrolling towards another double world championship triumph with their dominant RB19 which has proved to be the class of the field. 

While Horner said Red Bull were fairly confident they had a competitive car after pre-season testing, he insisted they never thought their advantage would be so big. 

"In February, we knew we had a good car, but we expected Ferrari to build on last year, and we expected Mercedes to be there also,” Horner told ESPN. 

“And so, it completely took us by surprise just how competitive we were compared to our opponents.”

Horner added: “I don’t think any of us thought that the car we had was actually as potent as that. We could see from the race times that we were competitive. 

“The Aston looked like it was the closest to us. The Mercedes didn’t look in great shape, they’d pioneered on with their concept. So we could only really tell our own performance. 

“Of course having been in Bahrain last year and lost out with a reliability issue we were determined to put that right this year.”

Red Bull broke McLaren’s record for the most consecutive race wins in F1 history after Verstappen secured the team’s 12th in a row at the Hungarian Grand Prix. 

Verstappen followed that up with his eighth straight win in Belgium seven days later to make it 13 victories on the bounce for Red Bull. 

There have been suggestions that Red Bull could go on to win all 22 races this year, but Horner isn’t getting carried away with such thoughts. 

“I think the secret to success is the culture that flows throughout the business, very much a can-do attitude,” he said. 

“Everybody loves winning and we celebrate every success. We obviously had some difficult years where we were trying to get back into a winning position but nobody lost focus of what the target was, what the goal was and what the ambition was. 

“I’ve never seen motivation higher on the campus than we currently have. Winning is fun and we celebrate every single victory.”