F1: Tires Will Determine 2013 Form, Says Horner

Formula 1

F1: Tires Will Determine 2013 Form, Says Horner

How the car works its tires over a single lap and over the race are going to be critical factors, says Christian Horner...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted March 14, 2013 Melbourne (AUS)

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner (Left) stands by with driver Sebastian Vettel in Australia. (Photo: Getty Images)

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says that tires will be the key factor in determining how this season plays out.

Horner insists that he has no idea what the form book looks like, despite widespread speculation that Red Bull is in better shape than testing might have suggested.

“I think it’s impossible to tell what the playing order is at the moment, who’s where,” said Horner. “And maybe we won’t even see on Saturday, if there’s going to be rain around as well. There’s probably going to be two or three races until we see a pattern emerge, but for sure you can see that the usual suspects are going to be competitive: Fernando (Alonso) in the Ferrari, the Mercedes has looked good over the winter, McLaren, the Lotus has been competitive as well.

“I think the biggest difference this year is that the tires are working slightly differently, and how the car works its tires over a single lap and over the race are going to be critical factors.

“It’s the same for everybody. I think there’s nobody here that can tell you whether they think it’s going to be a one, two, three, four or five stop race on Sunday.”

Horner is happy with the way winter testing unfolded, especially as the team made a relatively late call to guarantee that the RB9 was at the first session in Jerez.

“Testing-wise we had a very productive three tests; we got through the vast majority of what we wanted to achieve," he said. "You’re always left wanting more, but everybody’s only got 12 days. What was particularly impressive for us was to be at that first test after what was absolutely the shortest design and production time of any of our cars to date. The amount of hours and effort that went in behind the scenes in Milton Keynes was awesome.

“For sure, we were later with the car, but it’s an evolutionary car, so of course you take what you’ve learned out of RB8 into RB9. When you’re fighting for a championship up to the last race, it puts an additional pressure on the system.

“Hats off to the guys; they worked round the clock. We decided to be at that first test very late on. There were no spare parts there, but we had a car there.

“We made good progress, and where we actually finished up gave us a good understanding of where we are with the car coming here. How that compares to the competitors, who knows. Both drivers, with what they finished the test with, or what they will be starting here with, were certainly quite happy.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.