Red Bull boss Christian Horner feels that Ferrari is his team’s biggest challenger in Canada this weekend.
Charles Leclerc finished second behind Max Verstappen in a wet third and final practice session ahead of qualifying on Saturday, while the other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz had been running in the top three before crashing out with a little under half an hour to go in FP3.
The lead Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was third while Lewis Hamilton, having topped FP2 on Friday, was 10th as George Russell set a time good enough for 16th.
READ MORE: Verstappen leads Leclerc during wet FP3 in Canada
Both Mercedes and Ferrari got two drivers into the top five on Friday afternoon in dry conditions, with the Scuderia the only team to do so on Saturday morning.
Horner feels that it is the Italian side that poses the biggest threat to the reigning Constructors’ Champion’s chances of success come Sunday’s race.
“I think Ferrari,” he told Sky F1 when asked whom he sees as the biggest threat this weekend. “I think their car here looks competitive; I think Aston look like they’re there or thereabouts in that session. Mercedes looked like they were struggling to be generating tyre temperature. So, it does seem to be moving from circuit to circuit.”
The other Red Bull of Sergio Perez could only wound up 17th in the third practice session, over two seconds off the pace of Verstappen.
Horner, however, did not seem concerned by Perez’s placing in FP3, asserting that the Mexican will bounce back later in qualifying.
“I think just give him the data and he’ll be looking at that now with his engineer in the build-up to quali,” explained Horner. “He’d never got the tyres in the second half of the session in the right window. At the beginning of the session, he was running fine so the time I’m not worried about in P3. I think that will naturally converge.
“We know Checo is pretty decent in the wet. What Max seems to be exceptional at – a bit like Fernando – is generating tyre temp really quickly [in an] aggressive style. And suddenly, the car just comes into a window where it just works.”
Saturday’s qualifying session, similar to the practice earlier in the day, is expected to be run in wet conditions.
