Last season, the tough fight for the Formula 1 world championships between Red Bull and Mercedes even undermined the personal relationship between the two top managers of the teams, Christian Horner and Toto Wolff .
The two have regularly engaged in a war of declarations, but although things may be similar due to the closeness of the battle this year, Milton Keynes and Ferrari have not had any public clashes so far.
When the Red Bull boss was asked how different the fight with the Italians was from the clashes with the Silver Arrows and Wolff in 2021, he said: “Mattia [Binotto] is a good guy, he’s a kind of different competition.
“So you’re writing off Toto [Wolff], there’s plenty of time for him to get back in the fight, but I think we’re focused on ourselves,” he continued. “The nine teams are our rivals, and I think last year there was a lot of tension, things were happening on and off the track.”
“This season it seems that everything is starring on the circuit, and I think that the races between Charles [Leclerc] and Max [Verstappen] have been great, they have been epic,” said the British leader.
“If that continues through the year, inevitably, it’s going to break out as everything gets more competitive, and the stakes are riskier in the second half of the course, but what we’ve seen so far has been a respectful fight, tough but fair and, as I said, I think Mercedes will join the party soon,” said Horner.
Another key difference in the championship war this year is that Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen seem to have a much easier relationship, knowing each other since they were racing karts .
Last year, the tension between the Dutchman and Lewis Hamilton erupted following the incident at the British Grand Prix, and increased with the touch in Italy. However, the Red Bull boss said in Miami that the level of respect between his driver and the Monaco driver was admirable.
“I think it’s very close with Ferrari, it’s been some great racing, and you can see the great respect between Charles and Max. They’re enjoying each other, you can see that, and I was hoping we weren’t ready for another year like last year. , but it seems that this could go to the end too”, sentenced the English.
