Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner believes the 2024 Formula 1 season will still be “more challenging” than last term despite the side’s dominance in Bahrain.
Although qualifying proved to be a close affair, Red Bull crushed the opposition in the race as Max Verstappen led team-mate Sergio Perez home with a 22s margin.
However, Horner is remaining cautious about the Austrian outfit replicating that advantage at other venues, contending full assessments can’t be drawn from one race.
Ferrari and Mercedes, who proved to be the team’s closest pursuers, suffered from technical issues, while Red Bull also benefitted from retaining an extra set of Softs.
“I think that the start to the season that we’ve had has been an incredible result by the whole team,” Horner said.
“The race today, Max was dominant and Checo I thought drove a very strong race. Coming through the field from fifth to achieve a one-two finish at the first grand prix of the year, achieving maximum points I think is the perfect start for us in our 20th season.
“So it’s been a long winter and I think all the men and women in Milton Keynes have done an incredible job to design and produce a great car to start the season with.
“One down out of 24. You can’t read too much into a single event because of the nature of the circuit, the temperature, the fact that we were able to carry over a Soft tyre into the race, it was a surprise that others didn’t do, it sort of distorted perhaps the back end of the stint.
“Nonetheless, it was a dominant display and great to get that maximum score.”
Verstappen was lapping up to eight-tenths faster than his rivals at stages in Bahrain, prompting Mercedes boss Toto Wolff to claim he was in a “different galaxy”.
But Horner debates that pre-season testing showcased the competition had closed on the reigning champions and credited the team for maximising its package.
“Again, I’ve been in this business too long to draw too many conclusions from a single race,” he reiterated. “It’s a fantastic start, we’ll enjoy this moment, maximum points score.
“But it’s a long season, many different venues, different challenges, different conditions. And what we saw in the testing is that things are closer.
“Now we got it right this weekend, we took the right cars into the race, we executed a perfect race with both cars and we got a great finish. But I think that it will converge.”
When it was pointed out to him that Verstappen’s gap to Perez had almost doubled from 12 months ago, Horner queried: “Yeah but look, everything’s relative, isn’t it?
“I think Checo came from P5, Max was obviously managing the race as many drivers are managing different tyres at different times.
“It’s not a question of how much you win, it’s a question about winning, and we won today, Max dominated the race, he was in a class of his own.
“Checo drove an outstanding race as well, coming through the field from fifth on the grid. I think the back end of the race was exaggerated by the offset of tyres that we carried in.”
Horner is convinced that it is too premature to suggest that Red Bull will repeat the achievements of the previous campaign when it won all but one of the 22 races.
“I’m sorry that it wasn’t a more entertaining race for you today, but that is the result of the team doing its job, and producing an incredible car,” he added.
“Now we have a sample of one race. I have the feeling the field is going to concertina this year.
“So I don’t think you can take anything for granted out of this one race on a specific surface, specific conditions.
And I have a feeling that this season will be a lot more challenging on-track than last season.
“But it’s the best possible start, and our minds are already thinking about five days’ time in Jeddah.”
