Christian Horner admits his old colleague Rob Marshall could propel his new employer, McLaren, into a name race opposite to his Red Bull team.
Like Horner, Marshall was part of the Milton Keynes furniture after racing for the team for 17 years. But in search of a new challenge, he left the team last year after agreeing to join McLaren.
He left Red Bull last May and spent the remainder of 2023 on leave on the pitch, as is not unusual in Formula 1 as a whole. He made his new assignment official in Woking as McLaren’s Technical Director of Engineering and Design.
Having worked with Marshall for so long, team boss Horner is aware of the skill and experience he possesses. And he is also wary of his former colleague joining a burgeoning McLaren team.
After a slow start until 2023, they were Red Bull’s closest rivals in the second part of the season. And, with the addition of Marshall, Horner is wary of a potential challenge from the Woking-based outfit over the next 12 months.
“I think McLaren has had a wonderful moment throughout the year,” the Red Bull boss told Sky Sports. “There were times when they were our closest competitors. They have strengthened their team and Rob will be an asset, but he is still not just one person.
“There are seven or eight hundred people in an F1 team and the whole team wants to come together. With Lando [Norris] and Oscar [Piastri], who was impressive as a rookie, they could well be something next year. ” “”
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Red Bull’s dominance last year meant they got a significant head-start on their rivals in terms of developing their new car for the upcoming 2024 campaign. Despite that, Horner insists he expects the field to close going forward with his Red Bull team closer to the performance ceiling of the current regulations than their competitors.
He said: “I’m absolutely hoping, with strong regulations and diminishing returns for us because I think we’ve gotten to the most sensitive part of the curve quicker than others, that the cash box will converge. There’s a reset as you go next year, and I’m sure you’ll see a lot more cars that maybe look like an RB19 philosophy.
“If you stand still in this business, you have a tendency to go backwards. And I think we’ve climbed that curve faster than others. But we’re in a law of diminishing returns. “
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