Horner calm over 2022 title chances despite reliability concerns

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner is remaining cool over the Milton Keynes-based squad’s title chances in 2022 amid reliability concerns for the team.

Max Verstappen failed to reach the chequered flag at the Australian Grand Prix last Sunday, which marked his second race DNF in the opening three races.

The Dutchman enters the year as the reigning champion, but already sits 46 points down on leader Charles Leclerc.

With 20 races remaining in the 2022 Formula 1 Championship, Horner has not ruled out Red Bull’s chances this year.

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“We’re just about 10 per cent of the way into the championship so I think there’s still a huge amount to go,” Horner said. “The encouraging thing is we’ve got the basis of a quick car. 

“Ferrari was out of reach [on Sunday], their window that they were in with their tyre, you could just see they weren’t experiencing the problems either through blistering that some of the cars were experiencing, or graining that we experienced. 

“They were just in a happier place, which tends to happen when your balance is more settled.”

However, Horner admits that it must get on top of the reliability concerns quickly, as issues have also struck AlphaTauri, Red Bull’s sister team that runs the same Power Unit.

“We’ve seen it across the two teams, a few issues,” Horner said. “They’ve all been independent, none of them have been related. 

“We obviously need to understand those and address them quickly because even on a day that we weren’t as quick as Ferrari we were guaranteed second place. 

“In the first few races, for Max we’ve given up 36 points and for the team we’ve given up 50 points. When you look at that, both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship would be a lot different.

“But there’s still a huge percentage of the championship still to run but we need to get on top of these issues quickly.”