Emerging victorious in this year’s Formula 1 championship fight would be Red Bull’s “biggest achievement”, Christian Horner claims.
Having always been close but not close enough during the hybrid era, the Milton Keynes-based squad finally has a package that can challenge Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes’ run of domination with Max Verstappen.
However, having built up healthy leads in both championships earlier in the summer, Red Bull enter the second half of 2021 playing catch up again after a disastrous two races before the summer break.
“At no point do we feel that [we’ve been] absolutely in control [of the championship],” team boss Horner said after the Hungarian GP.
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“We’ve won six races in the first half of the year. The races we haven’t scored at in Azerbaijan it wasn’t Max’s fault, Silverstone wasn’t Max’s fault, here [Hungary] wasn’t Max’s fault.
“So our luck will change over the length of a season, it will balance itself out and I look forward to the second half of the year.
“The whole team deserves a well-earned break, the drivers will get some time off and believe me we’ll come out fighting in the second half of the championship – so yes, it will be interesting.”
Should Red Bull and Verstappen go on to claim the title in or before Abu Dhabi, Horner believes it would usurp the success the team enjoyed with Sebastian Vettel between 2010-2013.
“Arguably winning with Max would be our biggest single achievement in Formula 1 for the size of the challenge,” he told Reuters.
“They (Hamilton and Mercedes) are absolute titans of the sport, so I think that it would be our biggest achievement if we were able to beat them.”
