Red Bull are adamant they aren’t Formula 1’s new invincibles despite their runaway success at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen headed a team one-two, with Fernando Alonso the next best but nearly 40 seconds behind the two-time world champion.
Despite sounding an ominous warning for the rest of the F1 grid and the remainder of the 2023 season with the result, team principal Christian Horner downplayed the advantage.
“Invincibles? No,” Horner told Standard Sport. “This is a marathon rather than a sprint. We’ve had a sample of one track so far. It’s a completely different challenge in Jeddah [in two weeks] and another one in Melbourne. Let’s see after two or three races how we look.
“We fully expect our rivals to come back hard in future races. So none of us are getting carried away at all by this result.”
Amid Horner’s cautionary warning to the weekend’s end, George Russell declared the championship already done and dusted.
“Red Bull have got this championship sewn up and I don’t think anybody will be fighting with them this year,” he said. “They should win every single race this season.
“With the performance they have got, I don’t see anyone challenging them. Their pace here was weaker than in testing but they have got it easy at the moment and they can do what they like.
“They might not take every pole because Ferrari are competitive over one lap but, when it comes to race pace, they are in a very strong position.”
Bahrain has often proved an outlier in seasons past but this is a race where Red Bull have occasionally struggled and one they hadn’t won since their previous period of dominance in 2013.
Horner had declared to the rest of the field in the lead-up to the race that the team had enjoyed their best winter testing since he became team principal in 2005.
Verstappen got the jump on the chasing pack at the start and was never challenged. It was in stark contrast to a year ago when both Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez retired late in the race following a thrilling battle between the Dutchman and Charles Leclerc.
And Horner said: “It was a great start. Both drivers were exemplary. It was a very well executed race and I’m delighted to almost have maximum points in the bag today.”
Red Bull already have a clear gap in the constructors’ championship with 43 points, which Perez called their “best ever start” while Verstappen said it made for a nice change having grown accustomed to struggling at Bahrain.
Using the example of last year’s double retirement in Sakhir, Verstappen suggested Red Bull could still face setbacks despite the level of their early dominance.
“This is a great start but you have to keep on developing,” he said. “You have to try to keep that advantage. But it’s great we finally have a car that’s able to win from the very start.”
