Horner thinks long straights may weaken Red Bull in Korea

As Formula One is now heading to Korea, where the country’s inaugural grand prix will take place next weekend, Red Bull boss Christian Horner thinks that his team may be weakened by the long straights of the circuit.

During this season Red Bull has lacked competitiveness at high-speed circuits such as Spa Francorchamps and Monza. In Korea the RB6s will be facing three straights in the first sector of the circuit, one of them the longest in F1. Chris Horner has already admitted it to be a weakness for his team.

Nevertheless, the circuit also features fast, technical corners in the second and third sectors, which Horner expects to boost his team’s competitiveness.

"Korea is new for everybody, but looking at the track layout - with the longest straight on the calendar - you'd have to say that's going to be tough for us because of the package we have," he said. "But sectors two and three have quite a lot of fast, flowing corners so hopefully they should suit our chassis strengths more. I guess with the strengths and weaknesses that we have we should be competitive, but we're taking nothing for granted and we will have to do our homework, keep working hard and obviously we're very focused on that race."

Red Bull will be traveling to Korea with Mark Webber leading the Formula One World Championship Drivers Standings, with a 14 point lead over is team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. Horner considers that the fight for the title is still wide open and denied the suggestions that the team would favour one driver over the other.

"It's impossible to have a crystal ball," he added. "The drivers are split by 14 points, which is less than a third place finish, so under last year's point system that is less than six points. It's impossible to predict how the next three races are going to go so it's not correct, as we've always said, for us to favour one driver over the other. The team will support both drivers as equally as we can and give both drivers as good a chance as we can to win this championship. It's fantastic that we've got two drivers still competing in the drivers' championship."