Christian Horner makes Mercedes accusation as Carlos Sainz agrees with Red Bull chief

Russell excited to get started with Mercedes

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Christian Horner and Carlos Sainz are in agreement that Mercedes are downplaying their true performance in Bahrain testing. Every F1 team is currently trying to second guess where they are performance-wise compared to their rivals.

Mercedes have set the benchmark for the past decade, winning eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships.

But new regulations in place for 2022 have seemingly opened up the field with both McLaren and Ferrari impressing during pre-season testing.

Alpine have also shown good speed in Bahrain while there are also good signs from Williams and AlphaTauri.

Results in F1 testing though are often taken with a pinch of salt with teams notoriously ‘sandbagging’ to hide their true potential.

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Mercedes have caught the eye of everyone this week with their bold sidepod design, but they’re yet to blow everyone away on the track.

George Russell has downplayed Mercedes’ performance, insisting Ferrari are the ones to watch.

And while Horner accepts that Ferrari have certainly upped their game from last year, the Red Bull team principal still believes Mercedes are hiding something.

“It is impossible to tell,” Horner said.

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“What you can say is that it’s only going to be next Saturday (in qualifying) you’ll get the first snap shot, when the fuel comes out, people run as close to the weight limit as they can.

“I don’t think Mercedes have shown their hand yet.

“Ferrari look the form team. Hopefully we can be in there as well.

“It looks like McLaren have a strong car. Alpine have a strong car.”

Ferrari driver Sainz is in agreement, suggesting that Russell knows full well exactly how fast the Mercedes truly is.

“It is typical Mercedes, typical George – hype up the others and then come to the first race and blow the competition away,” Sainz said.

“If it was the first season they did it I would maybe believe them, but they have done it for five, six years now and they keep surprising us in the first race. So as you can imagine I don’t believe much.

“Already in GPS we can also see what they are doing and, yeah… I am not going to say much.”

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