The Red Bull team has managed to close all the distance that seemed insurmountable at the beginning of the 2022 Formula 1 season with Ferrari and, in addition, they have created a cushion of many points that allows the workers of Milton Keynes to reach the summer break with more peace of mind .
The double abandonment in the opening round in Bahrain, together with the Ferrari double and Max Verstappen’s problem in Australia, caused all the alarms to go off in the energy drink team. However, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend was a turning point for them as they put together a run of six consecutive wins that catapulted them to the top of both rankings.
Now, after a new victory for the reigning world champion in the Hungarian race, the gap with respect to Charles Leclerc, his immediate pursuer in the drivers’ table, amounts to 80 points , while in constructors, Red Bull commands with 97 units . So it’s very tempting to think that the Austrians can celebrate both titles early, but their boss, Christian Horner , is cautious about that.
Once he popped the champagne at the Hungaroring track, the British director spoke to the press about the chances of another World Cup: “Qualifying seems to be going well, and it’s a great way to get to the summer break”
“However, there are still plenty of races to go,” he warned. “Ferrari is fast, Mercedes is getting back into the game. There is still a long, long way to go in this championship, apart from a sprint race, so we are not taking anything for granted.
“There are still a lot of races to do, and they are very different places,” said Horner, who would never have imagined winning the Hungarian Grand Prix after his driver pairing failed to qualify on Saturday.
“Never,” he replied when asked if he thought it was possible to win. “At this circuit, our pre-race analysis showed that, if all went well, fifth and sixth could be results that we could achieve.”
“So to win from tenth on the grid is beyond all our expectations,” he said. “And then you add a clutch problem early in the test in Max [Verstappen]’s car, which he was managing, because the temperatures were getting a little bit out of control.
“That’s why we kept him away from Carlos Sainz for a while,” the Red Bull boss revealed. “Especially after the first stop, but later on, once we let him run and got the clutch issue under control, his pace was tremendous.”
To this we must add the success in the tire strategy, which was key in the final outcome: “Strategically, we were right at the moment of stopping. When I saw that Ferrari came out with a set of hard tires, I thought: ‘well, We might have a shot at winning this race.
“So, Checo [Perez] was a team player. Obviously, he was on a different strategy at the time, and it was important for him to let Max [Verstappen] off the hook so he could quickly get to Charles [Leclerc],” he said.
“He had to hold those tires to the end, and he did a quick spin, just to warm up the tyres,” joked Horner. “The pace he had was very good, we knew the difference between medium and hard was about half a second. So from then on, it was a matter of managing the rest of the race in the rain, so a phenomenal performance.”
