Horner: "Red Bull's power loss will be too much in Abu Dhabi"

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner believes that the power loss in the first part of the lap will be "too much" to try and recover in the final sector at Yas Marina.

Red Bull had an excellent start to Friday's practice sessions, with Max Verstappen the quickest and Daniel Ricciardo recording a one-two for the team.

However, both of them were narrowly beaten by Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas in FP2.

Horner was questioned on the power deficit that his team have, and he replied saying it was "too much really".

"The car in the last sector is very, very strong so we have to catch back up in that last sector what we give away on the straights," Horner said after the FP2 session. "What was encouraging was that the long run pace looked to be good.

Red Bull are switching to Honda power units for 2019, meaning the power deficit may become a thing of the past, but Horner couldn't say whether Honda have made any major developments to their engine for next season.

"We are exactly where we were four months ago where we see an awful lot of encouraging progress being made," Horner continued. "There is a regulation change next year, the front wings are totally different. That makes the rest of the car react in a different way.