“We have not yet seen the true potential of Mercedes”- Red Bull bosses afraid of what lies ahead with Mercedes with limited run time.
Mercedes had a rough weekend on the track, as they faced limited run time on three days long pre-season testing in Bahrain. That is why Red Bull is wary of Mercedes as it showed a limited set of qualities.
Red Bull ran 139 laps on Friday, Mercedes did only 50 laps on the same day, a good position for Red Bull, but Helmut Marko naturally doesn’t want to sign off Mercedes.
“We have not yet seen the true potential of Mercedes,” he said in a firm conversation with the German branch of Sky Sports. “Of course, we also learned that Mercedes had to deal with gearbox problems and now the second Mercedes team, Aston Martin too,” he continues.
“Those problems were electronic in nature, but that will be thoroughly investigated. Anyway, now we all see the disadvantage of three days of testing. If you now stand still for half a day, that is far from ideal”, he says, outlining the consequences for Mercedes.
Mercedes can easily turn the tide
On the other hand, team principal Christian Horner is also well aware of Mercedes’ threats and how quickly they recover from minor setbacks.
“That’s a class team. Two years ago, they also had problems during winter testing, but then they crushed us in Melbourne. Indeed, that car didn’t look good on the first two days here in Bahrain, but things like that can change very quickly in Formula 1,” he said to Motorsport-Total.
Meanwhile, even Mercedes isn’t afraid of what they faced in the past three days, as Lewis Hamilton on Sunday said that it is better to be exposed in the beginning than in the middle of the season.
