Red Bull might lack pace on the Korean straights – Christian Horner
Red Bull’s team boss Christian Horner thinks that the Korean long straights would trouble Red Bull at the country’s inaugural grand prix next weekend.
Red Bull was under a lot of pressure at the high-speed circuits like Spa Francorchamps and Monza this year where straight-line speed is the key to success. The new Korean circuit will feature three straights in the first sector. The second one is the longest
straight in Formula 1 and Horner already pinpointed that as Red Bull’s weakness for the coming race. However, sectors two and three consist fast, technical corners that he is hoping would boost his team’s competitiveness.
The Korean circuit is new for everybody but after looking at the track layout with the longest straight in the calendar, one has to say that it is going to be tough for the Red Bulls because of the current package they are using.
“But sectors two and three have quite a lot of fast, flowing corners so hopefully they should suit our chassis strengths more. I guess with the strengths and weaknesses that we have we should be competitive, but we're taking nothing for granted and we will
have to do our homework, keep working hard and obviously we're very focused on that race”, he said.
The current championship leader Mark Webber, who is driving for Red Bull, is currently 14 points ahead of his teammate Sebastian Vettel and ahead of Fernando Alonso as well. Horner believes that the title is still uncertain and once again, he dismissed the
suggestions that the team would favour any one of the two drivers over the other.
“It's impossible to have a crystal ball. The drivers are split by 14 points, which is less than a third place finish, so under last year's point system that is less than six points. It's impossible to predict how the next three races are going to go so it's
not correct, as we've always said, for us to favour one driver over the other”, he added.
Red Bull is currently leading the constructors’ standings by 45 points over their rivals McLaren and that is not something that will worry the team for the upcoming race in Korea. It seems that Fernando Alonso is the only threat for Red Bull for the upcoming
race as both of the McLaren drivers are over 25 points behind Mark Webber. Hence, even if Mark retires out of the next race and any of the McLaren drivers wins it, McLaren will still not be able to take the drivers’ standings lead.
Sebastian Vettel was at his best at the Japanese Grand Prix where he won the race followed by his teammate Mark Webber in 2nd place giving his team an astonishing 1-2. Fernando Alonso was not looking too strong in terms of pace but managed to
keep his 3rd place to score 15 useful points. Ferrari is the biggest threat for Red Bull in the coming race as Red Bull is aware that since Felipe Massa does not have a chance of winning the title this year, Ferrari will definitely ask him to help
his teammate win the coming races.
Ferrari has been known for supporting their leading driver but in this case, one cannot blame them for choosing Alonso over Massa as the Brazilian is too far behind the top five. On the other hand, Red Bull has both its drivers alive in the run for the championship
and it seems that this might be a disadvantage for them as compared to their rivaling Ferrari team.
“The team will support both drivers as equally as we can and give both drivers as good a chance as we can to win this championship. It's fantastic that we've got two drivers still competing in the drivers' championship”, said Christian Horner.
The Korean grand prix will be an interesting event and it will be interesting to see what Red Bull comes up with for the race.
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