Christian Horner snubs Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes ahead of Chinese Grand Prix

Christian Horner has admitted Red Bull expect Ferrari to be their “closest competitor” at the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix, following their impressive performance in Suzuka.

Both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc made impressive gains as they finished third and fourth respectively at the Japanese Grand Prix earlier this month, with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez earning Red Bull an impressive 1-2.

And Horner unsurprisingly snubbed seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton when discussing who could rival Red Bull in China, given Mercedes’ poor start to the new season which has seen neither Hamilton or George Russell earn a podium finish.

“Yeah, I think that Ferrari definitely at that circuit [Melbourne] were competitive, and we saw on Friday that their race pace was competitive – and we expect them to probably be our closest competitor there [in China],” Horner admitted.

“It’s a good circuit. The first corner goes on forever, and with the high-speed corners onto the back street as well, it’s always been very punishing on the front left tyre. It’s got a sprint race as well, first sprint race of the year – so that’s another challenge.

“A lot of points available, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.” Hamilton, meanwhile, heads to Shanghai desperate to make some major improvements after bemoaning Mercedes’ “terrible” strategy in Japan.

“There were two really terrible [sets of] hard tyres to run through,” Hamilton said after finishing ninth. “It was a real challenge today. I think I picked up a bit of damage at the beginning when Charles came around the outside.

Lewis Hamilton has endured a difficult start to the new F1 season

“I had huge understeer for the first stint and couldn’t turn the car. The hard tyre was pretty bad and the medium was much better. In hindsight, we should have kept two medium tyres, but in general the car was pretty bad today.”

However, Toto Wolff felt Mercedes lacklustre display was simply down to their “atrocious” early laps. “The second and third stints were super quick – we would have been racing for a podium, but for an atrocious first stint. We need to find out what it was,” he said.

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