Horner remains confident despite P4 and P6: 'In the fight'

After a rainy sprint shootout in China, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were in a second and third starting row. Red Bull Racing was hoping for more, but the focus is now on making the best of the sprint race. Christian Horner sounds optimistic.

"The Sprint Qualifying certainly proved exciting albeit in tricky conditions. Fourth and sixth to start the Sprint tomorrow is obviously not what we were aiming for, but it’s a circuit that you can overtake on, and therefore, we know we are in the fight," said Horner, who hopes his drivers can make up some ground straight away at the start.

The Red Bull Racing team boss continued: "The conditions on Saturday look to be a little more consistent than they were today so we are hopeful of a competitive Saturday and we will look to move up the field quickly and deliver a strong performance tomorrow in the Sprint and then in qualifying."

The sprint race starts at 04:00 UK time/05:00 CET on Saturday. Qualifying starts four hours later.