Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says the pace shown by Formula 1 rivals Mercedes during Friday practice for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix wa💝s “impressive”. 

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton set the pace on the first day of competitive runnin𒁃g in 2019 and topped both sessions in Melbourne, with the five-time reigning world champion𒊎 ending up eight tenths clear of Red Bull in FP2. 

With Red Bull and Ferrari seemingly yet to show their true pace, Horner was left impressed b𒀰y Mercedes’ headline-grabbing times, while he felt Ferrari had “underdelivered” after looking particularly strong during pre-season testing. 

“Mercedes looked quick in that second session, the times that both their drivers turned♑ out looked pretty quick,” Horner told Sky Sports. 

“Ferrari look like they underdelivered to what we th🌳ought they had in testing and our guys both had pret🎀ty decent runs. 

“Max got quite a bit of traffic on his fast laps so I t🦹hink there’s qu𝔉ite a bit of potential there, there’s more set up changes to come and we don’t know what fuel loads people are running but looks interesting. 

“On the long runs we look pretty sensible and I think the one lap pace of the Mercedes in that session looked pretty impressive, but the car looks s♚tiff and difficult to drive so whethe𒅌r that’s sustainable for a grand prix I don’t know.” 

Verstappen and teammate Pierre Gasly were third and fourth quickest after the qualifying simulation runs in the afternoon, one tenth clear of the fastest Fer𓄧rari driven by Sebastian Vettel. 

Asked if he felt Red Bull was really quicker than Ferrari,ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Verstappen replied: “I don't know, we'll find out tomorrow,ꦉ but we can only look at ourselves. 

“We for sure have some things to improve, but I think everyone has, it's the first day, you start here. It's been alrꦦight൲. 

“The Mercedes looks very quick. We've got lots of work to do and for sure we'll analys🐼e a lot.

“I think in general the car felt alright,” he aꦐdded. “From the engine side, no problems. They just went very smoothly and things were good.”