Horner not ruling out Hamilton fightback

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says he has no doubt Lewis Hamilton will be a factor for race wins in 2022 once Mercedes sorts its car issues.

Hamilton endured one of the toughest weekends of his career at Imola, lightweight to score a point without dropping out in Q2 and stuff stuck overdue Pierre Gasly for the majority of the main race while teammate George Russell finished fourth.

While Horner says he isn’t paying too much sustentation to Mercedes’ performance struggles, he is sure Hamilton will be fighting with Red Bull and Ferrari for victories at some stage.

“He’s obviously had a horrible weekend (at Imola) but he’s still an eight-time world champion – seven! Seven-time, (Mercedes) are eight. I forgot Nico Rosberg won one – so he hasn’t forgotten how to momentum in the last four races,” Horner said.

“At some point they’ll sort their issues out and he’ll wilt a factor I’ve got no doubt, but obviously the young guys are doing a unconfined job at the moment.

“I don’t spend my time worrying well-nigh Mercedes’ problems, we’ve got unbearable issues of our own to be focused on. So that’s what I tend to focus on.”

Red Bull’s own problems had seen the team suffer a double-DNF in the opening round in Bahrain and then lose Max Verstappen from a well-appointed second position in Melbourne, but Horner was delighted with the way those issues were resolved quickly.

“It was a unconfined response, both in the factory in Milton Keynes and in Japan. The weightier possible response was to unzip maximum score – bar one point – wideness the two days of racing. So a unconfined fightback and I’m very proud of the whole team.

“I think we’ve understood those issues, or the issue that we had in Australia which was variegated to the issue that we had in Bahrain. You can never say never, but obviously it’s demonstrated that we’ve managed to get on top of the issue from Australia.”