SPIELBERG, Austria // Red Bull Racing’s drivers doubt that coming home will be an advantage as Formula One returns to Austria this week for the first time in 11 years.
Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel finally ended Mercedes' six-race winning streak by finishing first and third in the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks ago.
Despite the upturn, they do not believe their home track, a venue formerly known as the A1 Ring that has been rechristened as the Red Bull Ring, will give them anything more than an emotional boost in Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, which was last held in 2003.
Teams that have been eating Austria-based Red Bull’s exhaust for the last four years are keen to pay them in kind on their home track.
“It adds a bit of extra motivation,” F1 leader Nico Rosberg of Mercedes said. “It would be really special to win on the A1 Ring.”
Ricciardo and Vettel said rivals Mercedes would bounce back from their hiccup in Montreal and go into the weekend as deserved favourites.
“The gap is still big,” Ricciardo said yesterday. “We’ve got a bit of steam from the last race. We’re all really excited – the home one for Red Bull – but [closing the gap] is still going to take a bit of time. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Vettel said Mercedes is likely to have sorted out their technical mishaps from Montreal.
“Everything else would surprise me,” Vettel said. “If a chance comes up like in Canada, we want to be right there to take it.”
Only engine troubles have stymied Mercedes this season. In Montreal, Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had the same problem at about the same time, when their rear brakes overheated. While Hamilton went out, race leader Rosberg limited the damage and lost just one place.
Despite the rare setbacks encountered by Mercedes in Montreal, Hamilton took positives out of the race.
“We’ve only gained from that experience,” the 2008 world champion said.
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