Christian Horner fears "mind-boggling" Lewis Hamilton win threat despite penalty hit

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner in Brazil — Photo: © LAT Images

São Paulo Grand Prix

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Horner fears "mind-boggling" Hamilton win threat despite penalty hit

Hamilton climbed 15 places from P20 to P5 in the Saturday sprint

Sam Hall

Saturday 13 November 2021 23:15 Updated: 23:24

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner fears Lewis Hamilton could yet take victory in the São Paulo Grand Prix despite starting from 10th on the Interlagos grid.

Hamilton battled back from his qualifying disqualification to finish the final sprint trial of the season in fifth position, making up an astonishing 15 positions over the 24 laps.

The majority of the seven-time F1 champion's moves came using DRS into the first corner as he made the most of Mercedes' straight-line pace advantage and a fresh internal combustion engine that means a five-place grid drop.

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After witnessing Hamilton's performance, Wolff told Sky Sports F1: “To be honest with you, it’s no real surprise because we saw it on Friday.

"You can see, particularly Lewis’ straight-line speed, is just mind-boggling.

“With Lewis’ pace that he had in the sprint, he can win this race. It would be very hard to defend against him with that kind of pace so we’ve got to get our heads down and do the best job we can and go from there."

Red Bull finished the sprint with Max Verstappen second, claiming two championship points, and Sergio Perez fourth although both trailed Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas.

Assessing the recent straight-line gains of Mercedes, Horner added: “We’ve seen this coming for a few races now

"I think Turkey it started to be there and Mexico we saw the straight-line speed. I think they were about 14kmph quicker at the end of the straight than we were so it’s no great surprise. “We saw it yesterday, that it is just phenomenal, especially with the size of rear wing that they have on the car, so it’s something that...we’ve got to try and focus on our own performance.”