Christian Horner: 'Max felt the car was good to drive'

Published on 23 February 2022 by Niels Hendrix

After the first day of testing in Barcelona, Oracle Red Bull Racing CEO and Team Principal Christian Horner said: “It was a very short off-season, but it’s great to be back at the track and see the number one on the car, it’s been a long time since it’s been on an F1 car and our target this year is to keep it there. We are excited to get this new era of the sport underway and see the car run on track in anger for the first time."

"With such a big regulation change it’s even more fascinating this year. We’ve got a great team and we’re fully motivated coming into this season. Max felt the car was good to drive, so it was a positive first morning. It is going to be a good year for Checo, now he is in his second year with us more familiar with the team.”

Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin added: “I’m happy because today went really well for the team. We gave ourselves the optimistic target of 700km and we finished around three laps short of that, which for the first day of testing is quite unusual. Things went well, we did some tests and we have a good direction for how to improve the car. Max is pleased so far, there are some balance limitations but nothing that makes us think we need to turn things upside down to make the car work.”