Max Verstappen regained the lead in the world championship on Sunday at the Dutch Grand Prix with a convincing home win and his seventh win of the season.
However, Red Bull expects the swing pendulum at the Italian Grand Prix this weekend in Monza, where the German manufacturer holds an impressive record, to swing back in favor of Mercedes.
Mercedes’ only defeat at Monza in the V6 hybrid era came in 2019 when Charles Leclerc sealed a famous home win for Ferrari, but even then both cars were still on the podium.
“Well, I think your car and engine package has historically always been very strong in these two places and they were weaker places for us,” said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
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“So I expect them to have the advantage on the next two, but then, when the time comes, I would certainly hope.
“For the next two weekends, our aim is to keep the damage as low as possible and to extract as much as possible from the car.”
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Horner assumes that the “massively close” battle between Red Bull and Mercedes will continue until the end of the season, as there is currently only a tenth of a second between the two teams in terms of overall performance.
“We seemed to have a tenth or maybe two in the race at this location [Zandvoort]”, Explained Horner. But in the next phase of the championship there will be tracks that suit Mercedes and us.
“We just have to make sure we take every opportunity. We did that today under massive pressure and it was great to get our eighth win of the season here. ”
Verstappen also admitted that Mercedes will likely have a speed advantage on the straights over Red Bull at Monza.
“If we continue what we’ve done so far, work well together as a team and capture every little detail, we can be competitive, but Mercedes could have a top speed advantage,” he said.
“I don’t think we or Mercedes have a big advantage over the others.”
Meanwhile, Toto Wolff admitted that Mercedes “has to bring the A game to win the A championship”.
“The last time in Zandvoort we just didn’t put all the pieces together,” adds Wolff. “We took some risks and did our best, but it wasn’t enough.
“A double podium gave us solid and useful points and expanded our lead in the constructors’ championship.
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