Christian Horner insists that he has no idea what the form book looks like, despite widespread speculation that RBR is in better shape than headline times in testing might have suggested.
Horner also says that tyres will be the key factor in determining how this season plays out.
“I think it’s impossible to tell what the playing order is at the moment, who’s where,” said Horner. “And maybe we won’t even see on Saturday, if there’s going to be rain around as well. There’s probably going to be two or three races until we see a pattern emerge, but for sure you can see that the usual suspects are going to be competitive, Fernando in the Ferrari, the Mercedes has looked good over the winter, McLaren, the Lotus has been competitive as well.
“I think the biggest difference this year is that the tyres are working slightly differently, and how the car works its tyres over a single lap and over the race are going to be critical factors.
“It’s the same for everybody. I think there’s nobody here that can tell you whether they think it’s going to be a one, two, three, four or five stop race on Sunday.”
Horner is happy with the way winter testing unfolded, especially as the team made a relatively late call to guarantee that the RB9 was at the first session in Jerez.
“Testing wise we had a very productive three tests, we got through the vast majority of what we wanted to achieve. You’re always left wanting more, but everybody’s only got 12 days. What was particularly impressive for us was to be at that first test after what was absolutely the shortest design and production time of any of our cars to date. The amount of hours and effort that went in behind the scenes in Milton Keynes was awesome.
“For sure we were later with the car, but it’s an evolutionary car, so of course you take what you’ve learned out of RB8 into RB9. When you’re fighting for a championship up to the last race it puts an additional pressure on the system.
“Hats off to the guys, they worked round the clock. We decided to be at that first test very late on. There were no spare parts there, but we had a car there.
“We made good progress, and where we actually finished up gave us a good understanding of where we are with the car coming here. How that compares to the competitors, who knows. Both drivers, with what they finished the test with, or what they will be starting here with, were certainly quite happy.”
Adam Cooper F1 
AAARGHHH! For once this year, I want someone in F1 to say something different. I want someone to say, we’ve got a real handle on these tyres and there’s no way they are going to interfere with our season, OR We think that we’ve got a gret idea of where everyone will be come race day but we’re not telling. Anything for a change.
In all seriousness though, the time between testing and racing this year seems longer and more inane than usual, or is it just me? I’m sure on a normal year we have some teams screaming about flexing wings, double DRS/diffusers, blown exhausts, that jet turbine attached to the top of your car, etc. This year everyone is just too quiet and the tyres are a bit of a non-starter for me because there’s really no conflict. Everyone has to have them, so suck it up. I understand why this has happened this year, with so little room for manouvere, tehnically speaking in the final year of a set of reg’s with only limited change, but I’m used to this period being at the least a little controversial. role on Sunday and either a lotus or mercedes 1/2, being a second a lap clear of the field. That should do it…