Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says "the quality" of reigning world champion's Mercedes is such that the German squad cannot be underestimated after its troubled test in Bahrain.
Mercedes suffered a setback on the opening day of pre-season testing at Sakhir, with a gearbox issue preventing Valtteri Bottas from completing the team's programs.
The Brackley outfit eventually got its affairs in order during the remainder of the weekend but limited mileage and a car that appeared very unstable on track point to a potentially difficult start to Mercedes' 2021 campaign.
Yet Horner is fully expecting Red Bull's arch-rival to bounce back, perhaps even as soon as next week in Bahrain.
"It’s a long season – 23 races is a massive season – but it’s really important for us to get a good start and the Mercedes test was probably a bit scrappy by their standards, but they are such a quality team," Horner told Sky Sports’ F1.
"It would be foolish to underestimate them and their ability to bounce back.
"We saw that a couple of years ago when they looked to be under-performing in Barcelona and then won very comfortably in Australia."
While 2021 is viewed by most teams as a transition year ahead of the introduction of F1's all-new regulation platform in 2022, it's nevertheless anticipated to be a hectic campaign with a record number of races and, for Red Bull, multiple challenges to contend with.
"It’s always tough balancing resources and Mercedes are a big and quality team," Horner explained.
"But we have the added challenges of the budget cap this year and the new regulations for 2022 and, of course, we are building our own power unit division here as well, so it’s pretty busy.
"But everyone is super-motivated here and looking forward to the racing season.
"The fact it looks like we have a decent car to start the year with, we have proved our quality in being able to develop in the past and we need to focus on doing a good job again this year.
"It’s good for us to be going to the race in Bahrain with a decent amount of mileage, a reasonable feeling from the car and now all focus is on making the car quicker rather than fixing problems."
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