The Red Bull Racing team has started the last two seasons slowly, but managed to narrow the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari by the end of the season and finish strongly. In 2019, the team’s performance is being watched closely as they begin their new partnership with engine supplier Honda.
The team has been full of praise for the Japanese engine manufacturer during pre-season testing. The team suffered a few glitches in the eight days of testing, with a couple of crashes from new driver Pierre Gasly.
After an error-filled start last season, Max Verstappen turned things around and ended the season with two wins under his belt.
The Dutchman will hope to make a clean start to this season. “I always look forward to going to Australia and I’m ready to start racing again. Even though the season starts earlier this year, it still felt like a long winter.
“Melbourne is an interesting weekend as it’s the first race of the season and nobody really knows where they stand, especially with the regulation changes and us with our new power unit.”
“Albert Park is an interesting track, it’s actually quite bumpy and has a lot of fast corners, so it’s fun when you have a well-balanced car there.
“It’s not the easiest circuit to overtake on as the straights aren’t quite long enough which makes it hard to set-up a pass, but it’s always possible.”
RB15, Red Bull’s new challenger, showed good long run pace in winter testing. Verstappen is confident on this front but unsure if they have closed the gap to the top two teams.
“If we look at our longer runs from testing, our performance seems pretty promising and we hope to be competitive from the beginning of the year.
“Overall, I think we have a pretty good package, but we won’t know where we are until we get into the race weekend and see if we have closed the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari.”
