While everyone expected Red Bull to be in front in Australia, few believed McLaren Mercedes will have what it takes to battle for the podium. And the Woking based team surprised the audience last Sunday, finishing second through Lewis Hamilton and disclosing some great pace from both MP4-26s throughout the weekend.
Considering the poor performances recorded by McLaren in pre-season testing and their huge development leap in less than 2 weeks, Hamilton and his boss Martin Whitmarsh predicted it won't be too hard for McLaren to catch Red Bull this season. As far as Horner is concerned however, this will be a tougher job than expected, as his team is much better prepared for a title winning campaign than last year.
“We out-developed them last year, we did it the year before, and we will be determined to try and do it again this year,” said Horner after the Australian Grand Prix.
“As a team you learn, you learn from the victories, you learn from the mistakes. As a group we are still very young, we're still progressing, and we are still moving forward. I feel that we are better equipped than last year to deal with the Championship, and the undoubted pressures that will come,” he added.
Horner reckoned however that the pace of the RB7 will not be as dominant as in Australia at all races this year, but that the squad is prepared to take on its rivals each race at a time.
“I don't think we can expect another 18 races like we saw (in Australia). You know that Ferrari will come back strong, you know McLaren won't sit still, they made a big step coming here this weekend. We've got some good stuff in the pipeline, and the way the team is working is fantastic.”
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