Horner expected more from Ferrari and Mercedes: 'Took us by surprise'

For years, Mercedes was the dominant force in Formula 1, but currently, it is Red Bull Racing. With the long-standing dominance Mercedes has enjoyed, it gives Red Bull team boss Christian Horner double the satisfaction that his own team is now in that position.

In the 2023 F1 season, Red Bull is still unbeaten. Max Verstappen won 10 of the 12 Grands Prix, while Sergio Perez won the remaining two races. This puts the team well on its way to its third consecutive world title among drivers and second consecutive title among constructors.

When Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton in the battle for the world title in 2021, a run of seven drivers' titles in a row came to an end. Mercedes did secure the constructors' title for the eighth time in a row, but even that run was broken when Red Bull won both championships in 2022.

Mercedes's dominance like a 'prison sentence' to Horner

"Seven long years... that's a long time," Horner looks back at Mercedes' dominance, which he jokingly compares to a prison sentence. "You get less for crimes!" the Red Bull team boss notes on ESPN's Unlapped podcast.

"We had to do a lot of watching of a lot of Mercedes winning and so on. But we never lost sight of our target. We were still winning races every single year at circuits we could excel at," he continued. "It was just about putting the missing pieces into place. Then when we got a competitive power unit, bang, we were able to go toe to toe with Mercedes."

Since the new F1 regulations were introduced in 2022, the Mercedes era came to an end and marked the beginning of the current Red Bull era. "We could never have imagined in our wildest dreams that we're heading into summer break unbeaten in both grand prix and sprint races," Horner admitted.

Horner had expected more from Ferrari and Mercedes

At Red Bull, they knew they had gold in their hands with the RB19, but that the lead over other F1 teams would be so big came as a surprise even to the Austrian formation. "In February, we knew we had a good car, but we expected Ferrari to build on last year, and we expected Mercedes to be there also. It completely took us by surprise how competitive we were compared to our opponents," the Red Bull team boss continued.

"It's a lonely place when you're at the top, but I think the way the team has responded has been fantastic, and the results we achieved in '22 were insane... the fact we might match that or even beat that in '23 is beyond crazy," Horner said.