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Red Bull have won all 10 races so far this season, with their outstanding RB19 car propelling runaway leader Max Verstappen to a third consecutive World Drivers’ Championship.
The Milton Keynes-based team’s generous advantage has allowed them to already start focusing on next year’s car without having to make any significant upgrades to their current machine, which has allowed their rival teams to start closing the gap.
But regardless of Red Bull’s absence from the 2023 development war, Horner believes there are signs of rival teams converging on it, which he believes will continue if regulations are left as they are. until 2026.
He therefore rules out that Red Bull, which was also given the least amount of development time under F1’s ATR success handicap, could emulate Mercedes’ dominant streak between 2014 and 2020.
“One thing we know from the sport is that things will converge. You can already see that starting to happen, and the most important thing to have convergence is to have stability,” said said Horner after Verstappen’s victory at the British Grand Prix.
“The stability of the regulations will bring all the teams together a lot. You can see this is already starting to happen. It will not be another seven years of domination.
“The powertrains are all quite similar now and the chassis is moving much faster than the engines. We can already see from the start of the season until now, that things are already converging.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st, lifts the winner’s trophy
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Horner says it’s “inevitable” to see teams start copying Red Bull’s successful car design, with McLaren’s successful redesign of its MCL60 the latest “flattering” effort to replicate his team’s performance.
“It’s a very similar concept; I was looking at the car on the grid,” added Horner.
“It’s the first time we really see it this year and we see that the philosophy they have taken is very similar. They have chosen a similar path. It’s flattering, isn’t it?”
“It is inevitable that this will happen and why not you? When you have a car as good as ours, it makes sense to try to imitate it, which some teams have chosen to do.
“Their performance at this circuit has been very solid, but it will be very interesting to see how it plays out in the next few races.”