“Lando Norris deserved to win the race” – Christian Horner is wary of the threat McLaren poses to Red Bull for the remainder of the season.
McLaren is faring well this season, giving ample competition to Ferrari in the battle for third place. And they have done enough to concern Red Bull as well, with Christian Horner acknowledging the threat Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo pose.
Norris has been sensational this season, winning three podiums in the first half of the season, and was desperately unfortunate to not win his maiden F1 GP in Russia last week.
Former Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo won his first race for McLaren, though, with McLaren completing a 1-2 at Monza, the only team to do that this season.
“I think they’ve obviously made great progress this year, certain circuits they seem to perform well at and others that are more challenging for them.
“Lando Norris deserved to win the race (in Russia) but I’m sure there’ll be some circuits between now and the end of the year that they’ll fare well at.”
Horner evaluates Mercedes’ chances for rest of season
Despite McLaren’s threat of ruining Red Bull’s title aspirations this season, Horner is completely focused on the rivalry with Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton. He feels Mercedes has an upper hand in the upcoming Turkish GP, but things pretty much even out after that.
“I don’t think there’s any circuits that stand out as strongly as Russia and Monza, but for sure Mercedes will be strong.
“They won in Turkey last year, they’ll be strong there. But then we start going to Austin where we should be there or thereabouts. Brazil, Mexico we’ve always been strong.
“We don’t know anything about Qatar, we don’t know anything about Jeddah, then Abu Dhabi, you could say it’s 50-50 in what’s left on the table in what favours slightly one more team than the other.”
