Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Horner: Driver competition at Red Bull and Toro Rosso 'healthy'

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Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner refused to be drawn about his driver line-up for 2017, commenting instead that competition between his existing drivers and those at sister team Toro Rosso was 'healthy competition' which kept everyone on their toes.

Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat currently occupy the race seats at Red Bull, having themselves graduated previously graduated from Toro Rosso, while Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen are the current incumbents there who are gaining more and more experience with every passing Grand Prix.

With Kvyat still struggling to find the consistent dazzling form he's displayed in other championships, early rumours have suggested that he might be ousted next year in favour of Verstappen, the latest teen sensation

"It is a nice situation to have," Horner told the official F1 website when asked who might have to leave Red Bull to make way for Verstappen.

"Both Toro Rosso drivers are Red Bull drivers, as were Ricciardo and Kvyat - and [Sebastian] Vettel before - and all started out at Toro Rosso.

"It is an incredible situation to have such a pool of fantastic drivers," Horner said. "We don’t have an issue with [finding] competitive drivers in the next few years."

Horner added that he didn't feel that the current situation of pitting drivers in a constant competition to keep their spot was disruptive to the teams or put too much pressure on the drivers.

"It is a healthy situation, it’s healthy competition and it keeps all the drivers honest," he said.

Direct comparisons between the two driver line-ups are harder now that Toro Rosso has reverted to Ferrari engines which have a performance edge over Red Bull's TAG Heuer-branded power units.

"We estimated the gap in Melbourne to be 0.8 seconds between the power units," revealed Horner. "They have a good power unit and you can see the benefits from that - especially in the first half of the season. We hope to catch them by then."

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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.