F1: Horner Eager To See How Formbook Plays Out

Formula 1

F1: Horner Eager To See How Formbook Plays Out

Red Bull boss weighs in on teams..

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted March 15, 2012 Melbourne (AUS)

Christian Horner, Team Principal, Red Bull Racing, (Left) and Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal, Scuderia Ferrari (Right) at Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia. (Photo: Getty Images)

Christian Horner says he is eager as anyone to find out what the pecking order is among the top teams this weekend.

The Red Bull boss insists that even RBR isn’t quite sure of how things stand after testing.

“I think come Saturday afternoon if it’s dry we’ll get the first indication of where the pecking order is if you like for the start of the year,” said Horner. “Then of course it’s a flat out development race from here all the way to Brazil in nine months’ time.

“It’s going to be fascinating, because I think sitting here nobody truly knows what kind of shape that they’re in, because the testing whilst it gives glimpses, it doesn’t give a very clear picture.”

Asked by SPEED.com to clarify what glimpses he saw, Horner said: “I think the most important thing in the way that we conduct our testing is that we have three four-day tests available to us and you try to maximize the use of time with the programs that you want to work through, and that means not getting drawn into focusing on the timing screen, despite the fact that it can be quite distracting at times.

“What you can see from some of the longer runs is that the usual protagonists look in reasonable shape. McLaren look like they’re going to be competitive, Mercedes look like they’ve made a step forward, Ferrari I don’t think are in as bad a shape as has been perceived, and Lotus have obviously shown real flashes of speed as well. Out of that you’ve got four or five teams that all have a chance of being competitive.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.