Christian Horner thinks Red Bull are throwing down a challenge Toto Wolff has never experienced in F1 before – a real threat to Mercedes’ dominance.

Team principals Wolff and Horner have become arch-rivals in the style of football managers, their relationship full of tit-for-tat jibes not unlike those between Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger in their pomp, a decade or two ago.

It is all part of Red Bull going toe-to-toe with the seven-time consecutive World Champions now they have a car, a Honda engine and a driver in Max Verstappen all capable of unsettling Mercedes and potentially wresting the titles away from them.