Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admits he is hoping Mercedes is “in to diminishing returns” with its power unit.
Mercedes dominated the 2014 season and didn’t show its hand in terms of pace during the first test at Jerez, completing the most laps of any team but never finishing higher than third in the standings. With Renault looking to reduce the deficit to Mercedes by 50% this season, the first test saw teething problems for the new power unit in the RB11 and Horner is aware how much progress Red Bull makes is dependent on the level of Mercedes’ improvement.
“I think it all depends on what the opposition have done during the winter as well,” Horner said. “Nobody is obviously standing still but hopefully they did such a good job last year they’re in to diminishing returns.
“I think we can only focus on ourselves with Renault and all I can tell you is collectively we’re working well together, we’re making good progress. We’re understanding where performance is to come and everybody’s very focused on those areas and on extracting that performance.
“I feel were moving in the right direction, it’s not an insignificant amount of deficit we’ve got to claw back but certainly if you look at the detail on the car it’s a fantastic achievement by the team. It’s an evolution of last year’s car which addresses some of last year’s weaknesses and it’s a very detailed, very impressive car which we've turned up with as a starting point for the campaign this year.”
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