Christian Horner was dismissive of Mercedes as he pointed out "the real threat" to his Red Bull team at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Naturally, the championship leaders are favourites for victory again in Montreal. And Max Verstappen looks the most likely to deliver that success given how flawless he has been so far this year.
His team-mate Sergio Perez will hope to be in with a chance also. But there may be several others capable of success in Canada, especially if the heavy rain continues to be a factor on Sunday.
Mercedes might hope to be a threat. Their car upgrades helped them to a double podium last time out in Barcelona and raised hopes that they might be able to repeat the trick this weekend.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell topped the timesheets in FP2 on Friday in a further boost to those hopes. But they struggled more in the final practice session on Saturday as the rain poured.
The team admitted its driver had trouble getting the intermediate tyres into the ideal temperature window. And Horner pointed to that issue as he suggested others might be better placed to challenge Red Bull.
Asked where "the real threat" will come from this weekend, Horner said: "I think Ferrari. Their car here looks competitive. I think Aston Martin look like they were there or thereabouts in that session [FP3].
"I think Mercedes looked like they struggled to generate tyre temperature, so it does seem to be moving from circuit to circuit."
His prediction of a strong showing from Ferrari was backed up by his long-time ally Helmut Marko. The Red Bull adviser was impressed by what he saw from the Italians, particularly from Charles Leclerc, during their own practice programme.
The Austrian said: "Mercedes has become a lot faster, but I'm afraid Ferrari is even stronger here, you could see that. They drove about the same times as us and Leclerc's long runs certainly looked very impressive."
