Christian Horner’s one-word answer to Mercedes sympathy question

Red Bull boss Christian Horner got straight to the point in confirming he has no sympathy for Mercedes over their woeful Brazilian Grand Prix.

Mercedes remain the most recent team to sustain a title fight against Red Bull, the duo part of one of the greatest battles of all time in 2021 as they went head-to-head for the Constructors’ Championship, while Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton delivered an all-time classic Drivers’ Championship tussle.

Tempers flared throughout the campaign, with Horner and his Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff seeing their fair share of heated exchanges.

Christian Horner has no sympathy for Mercedes

Horner and Wolff still dish out the banter from time to time, but the on-track battles are now absent as Red Bull continue to dominate Formula 1, while Mercedes suffered an embarrassing race weekend last time out in Brazil.

Hamilton finished over a minute behind Brazilian Grand Prix winner Verstappen, Wolff branding Mercedes’ performance “the worst in 13 years” on a personal level, so Horner was asked whether there was any feeling of sympathy for the Silver Arrows.

“No,” was the simple and clear response from Horner.

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The last time that Formula 1 visited Interlagos, it was Mercedes claiming their only victory of the 2022 campaign as George Russell took a sprint and grand prix double win.

This time Verstappen took pole, the sprint win and the grand prix victory, Horner explaining that Red Bull took the lessons from a painful 2022 defeat and applied them to full effect to ensure they set the standard this time around.

“You’ve got to keep improving in all areas and I think leaving this race last year hurt that our performance wasn’t as strong as we would have liked and we felt we didn’t get the setup right,” said Horner.

“And so we came here, we learned the lessons from last year, we applied them well, we focused the car on the race. And in the end, we came away with a pole, the sprint and the grand prix, with a third and a fourth for Checo. So, it’s been a very strong weekend.”

Verstappen and Red Bull have long since secured back-to-back Drivers’ and Constructors’ title doubles, with Red Bull’s tally of 782 points more than double that of Mercedes’ who sit P2.

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