"We assume that we will clearly be the best in the race": Red Bull taskmaster unfazed by rivals Ferrari and Aston Martin

Red Bull's advisor feels that the team will be extremely dominant during the race in Bahrain after locking up the front row during the qualifying session.

Helmut Marko, who has been serving as Red Bull's chief advisor since 2005, is fairly confident about the pace and competitiveness of the cars as he pointed out issues with other teams. He feels that his team will be the 'best' during the race, mirroring their performances in the 2022 season. If this turns out to be true, the Milton Keynes-based outfit could potentially be looking at yet another dominant season. Marko told RacingNews365.com:

"We assume that we will clearly be the best in the race."

In addition to being confident about his team's dominance in the upcoming race, he feels that other teams will spend too much time battling each other on the track to compete against RB in any form.

He revealed that the data the team has collected marks Aston Martin's performance above Mercedes in the long run. Furthermore, he believes that Ferrari will encounter reliability issues as Charles Leclerc faced during the session:

"In the long runs, Aston Martin was better than Mercedes according to our data. It will be an exciting fight and Charles Leclerc had some problems with his engine, so reliability is not going very well there yet."

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Marko has 'every reason to be optimistic' about Red Bull's dominance in the race

Red Bull has been the benchmark of performance for almost all of the teams during the pre-season testing period, and although Max Verstappen previously mentioned that the car was a little different during FP sessions than the testing, their speed was quite apparent during Q3.

Helmut Marko revealed that the data Red Bull has collected is promising and that there's no reason to be worried. According to him, there's a good chance that the team will "maintain their superiority" this season:

"If we succeed, we want to get away from the start right away. We don't want to get arrogant, but looking at the data, we have every reason to be optimistic. As long as there are no technical problems, we can also maintain our superiority in the race."

Both Verstappen and Sergio Perez have the front row of the grid locked up ahead of the first race of the season, and while Ferrari are relying more on strategic decisions to get the best result, Red Bull are reportedly the strongest competitors at the time.