For several years two teams has dominated races in Formula One – Mercedes and Ferrari. Germans took over the reins from Red Bull, which was unbeaten from 2010 to 2014. The next year has been advantage of Mercedes, and Austrians have to be satisfied with the third place. There is the question though, if Red Bull with the current squad and change of an engine provider is able to compete with the first two teams, or has to fight to maintain third against Renault.
Since this year Honda supplies Red Bull with engines. Austrian team wasn’t satisfied with value to price ratio with Renault, so decided to do this radical step. Team star, Max Verstappen feels happy with new engine. It seems like Red Bull won’t lose in quality with this decision, but only can profit.
Another big move was to replace Daniel Ricciardo, who was willing to join Renault, with Pierre Gasly from Toro Rosso. It seems like the quality of the team has lowered, but it is more like an investment in the future. The first driver, Verstappen, is 21, and Frenchmen is 23. After Australian Grand Prix we can say, that Gasly needs to get used to competing at the top, although he has everything to succeed there, what proves to reach 11th place from 17th after poor team strategy in qualifying. On the other hand, Verstappen will probably fight until the end to be the world champion.
Gasly needs to prove, that in the following years will reach the level of Ricciardo, or the queue of eager drivers will do everything to replace him and will wait for him to slip.
[photo: Red Bull Racing Facebook]
