Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Horner: Best driver and chassis still won’t win

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Christian Horner says something needs to be done about the emphasis on power units in F1 because the combination of the best driver and chassis is unable to win at present.

Since the new power unit regulations were introduced at the start of the 2014 season, Mercedes has dominated the sport by winning 22 of the 26 races since. While Daniel Ricciardo won three grands prix last season, Red Bull has yet to even score a podium this year and Horner says a team with a significant power unit deficit can do nothing to make up for the shortfall.

“I think that the emphasis on power unit of the three elements of power unit, chassis and driver, if you have the chassis and driver bits it doesn’t compensate for the power unit,” Horner said. “So it’s significant and difficult to over-ride.”

Having previously praised the job Ferrari has done in closing the gap to Mercedes, Horner hopes future aerodynamic regulation changes will help give car designers more influence too.

“I think, with what has been discussed for 2017, the chassis will become more of a factor – I think that will be a more positive thing and hopefully, over time, these engines will converge in performance.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.