Horner: Canada 'the true tester' for Red Bull

Christian Horner says the Canadian Grand Prix will be "the true tester" of how competitive Red Bull is compared to Mercedes this season.

Red Bull won the Spanish Grand Prix courtesy of Max Verstappen after the two Mercedes drivers collided on the opening lap, but beat Mercedes on outright pace in Monaco as Daniel Ricciardo took pole position. Ricciardo should have won but for a pit stop error which handed victory to Lewis Hamilton, but the Australian is expecting Canada to show how strong Red Bull really is.

Team principal Horner agrees the circuit in Montreal is a good opportunity to see the real gap between the teams.

"I think we’ve had two very competitive weekends now but, particularly [in Monaco] versus Mercedes, we got the pole position, we’ve run round … again, it’s been Daniel and Lewis as the class of the field," Horner said.

"I think the true tester for us is going to be in two weeks’ time in Montreal, to see how we fare there as, obviously, it’s a different kind of venue."

Ricciardo was the only Red Bull driver using an updated Renault power unit in Monaco, but Horner confirmed both his team and the works outfit will receive the new engine next weekend.

"It’s fairly unusual what’s happened [in Monaco] and I think all four drivers will have the upgraded engine for Montreal," he added.

The Renault upgrade is expected to deliver a gain in the region of half a second per lap in Canada compared to the previous specification of power unit.

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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.