Red Bull boss Christian Horner on Monday refused to believe that Sebastian Vettel’s long-awaited first home triumph in Sunday’s German Grand Prix had given the champion and his team a clear advantage in this year’s title race.
Instead the champions’ team chief said he remained nervous about the potential threat of all three of Red Bull’s main rivals as they approach the half-way point in the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix later this month.
Horner said: ‘It is still very much a four-way battle and you cannot discount anybody we are effectively at the halfway point of the year and there is still an awful long way to go. Anything can change. ‘To have won four Grands Prix in the first half of the year is satisfying, but it doesn’t guarantee anything. We see weekend to weekend different teams have different levels of competitiveness and I am sure it will continue during the next few events.’
Horner’s reluctance to trumpet Vettel’s first win in the month of July and first on German soil did little to stop most observers feeling that by chalking up his fourth win in nine races, the defending triple world champion had delivered a heavy flow to his rivals. Horner said the race was made difficult by the need to switch strategies because of the mid-race introduction of the safety car. He said: ‘It was a tough call in some respects and not in others.’