Christian Horner on McLaren’s pace: “It will be impossible for Max Verstappen to replicate Suzuka performance”. Red Bull's team principal doesn't expect miracles from his champion Max Verstappen.

Uncatchable McLaren
The free practices for the Bahrain Grand Prix painted a picture similar to the winter tests, with McLaren appearing untouchable in qualifying pace and even more so in race pace. Red Bull, who with Max Verstappen had claimed pole and victory just a week ago in Suzuka, doesn’t seem able to replicate that performance.

Christian Horner not deluded
Team principal Christian Horner wanted to keep expectations low: “We have a lot of work to do tonight,” he explained to the Dutch reporters at Viaplay, adding: “McLaren seem incredibly fast. With Mercedes and Ferrari, we’re close, but McLaren really seem to have a few tenths over the rest of the grid. First of all, we’ll need to figure out how to improve, and I believe we’ll focus on managing tire temperatures.”

Christian Horner implied that Bahrain won’t be a place for miracles for Red Bull: “It will be impossible to repeat what we did last week in qualifying and then keep the other cars behind for an entire race. This is a track where overtaking is relatively easy, so we have a lot of work ahead with the engineers tonight.” – the Red Bull team principal concluded ahead of the qualifying session for the Bahrain Grand Prix.