Red Bull rivals enter crucial winter; Horner: We won't repeat this season

Formula 1 chasing pack behind Red Bull look to 2024 season as winter quest to close on champions begins 85 days to pre-season testing, and 95 days to the opening race day, in 2024 with Red Bull's rivals determined to challenge for wins next season and aware of the crucial challenge ahead this winter in final development of their next cars Last Updated: 27/11/23 11:44pm Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Watch the top 10 most viral moments from the 2023 Formula 1 season. Watch the top 10 most viral moments from the 2023 Formula 1 season. Formula 1's chasing pack enter a crucial winter off-season as they aim to find ways to close down Red Bull's advantage in time for the 2024 season, which begins at the end of February. As the sport prepares to head back to their bases in Europe - with one final day of track running to first come in Abu Dhabi at a tyre/young driver test on Tuesday - thoughts are very much turning to next season and the challenge of responding to Red Bull and Max Verstappen completing the most dominant season in the sport's history.Red Bull won all-but one of the 22 races this year while Verstappen, who claimed 19 of those triumphs, set a new benchmark season victory rate in F1 of 86 per cent, among with a host of other records. So what chance former champions Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren - plus highly-ambitious Aston Martin, the big movers of last winter - got of bridging the gap and fighting for wins when next season begins in Bahrain?Red Bull, at least, are expecting things to get tougher for them in 2024."We know our opponents that this [their domination] will have motivated them more than ever to come back at us hard," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner after Sunday's season-ending Abu Dhabi GP."Nothing stands still in this sport; everything moves so quickly. You can see as we weren't developing the opposition coming closer and closer. How it all finished up in the Constructors' Championship this year "We have seen competitors coming closer at different venues and I'm sure concepts will converge, stable regulations will always concertina, so I don't think we will ever be able to repeat the season that we've had."But hopefully we can take the lessons from RB19 and apply them into 20 and come up with a car that we can defend these titles with."Mercedes: Wolff on hopes for 2024 and the need to scale 'Mount Everest' Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff praises George Russell on his 'exceptional' performance to secure second place in the constructors' championship and expresses the hopes he has for next season. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff praises George Russell on his 'exceptional' performance to secure second place in the constructors' championship and expresses the hopes he has for next season. Beating Ferrari to second in the standings on Sunday acted as a nice winter boost for all at Mercedes after a second successive tough year spent in Red Bull's wake. But the longer-term focus at the team has been clear for some time now and that's how they plot a route back to the front of F1 in the shortest-timeframe possible.Next year and their in-development W15 car represents the first chance to at least get back towards winning races after their first winless campaign in 12 years, having decided as long ago as March that they were on the wrong track with the way they were approaching the current ground-effect rules generation and needed a sharp about-turn.Underlining the scale of change expected on the W15, Wolff said in Abu Dhabi: "We are changing the concept. We are completely moving away from how we laid out the chassis, the weight distribution, the air flow."Literally almost every component is being changed because only by doing that I think we have a chance."We could get it wrong also. So between not gaining what we expect, to catching up and making a big step and competing at the front, everything is possible." But for a team who know better than anyone about dominating across a sustained era, Wolff is under no illusions about the task ahead to stop Red Bull's winning juggernaut immediately."There is a Mount Everest to climb in order to catch up with Red Bull," said Wolff, whose team finished 20s behind Max Verstappen in the season finale in third place."I have no doubt that McLaren is going to be right in the mix next year, maybe Aston Martin, maybe others. We must leave no stone unturned, which we do, in Brixworth and in Brackley. As tough as it is to be reminded it's just P2, it's also a great opportunity to come back and thrive for the start [of the season]."He said that although "beating them under the "current regulations is against the odds" Mercedes and the rest of the chasing pack have simply "just got to do a better job". Wolff also made clear