{"id":632796,"date":"2023-02-04T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2023-02-04T08:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/?p=632796"},"modified":"2023-02-04T10:47:34","modified_gmt":"2023-02-04T10:47:34","slug":"max-verstappen-expects-tougher-ferrari-and-mercedes-fight-in-f1-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/news\/max-verstappen-expects-tougher-ferrari-and-mercedes-fight-in-f1-title-defence","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen expects tougher Ferrari and Mercedes fight in F1 title defence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Photograph: Mike Coppola\/Getty Images for Oracle Red Bull RacingMax Verstappen is optimistic he is in a strong position to defend his Formula One world title this season but he and his Red Bull team expect a much stronger challenge from Mercedes and Ferrari.The Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, has also emphasised that the drivers&#8217; right to express themselves must be maintained after the FIA announced it is to ban political statements, with Horner saying: &#8220;We don&#8217;t want a load of robots without opinions going racing.&#8221;Verstappen was speaking at Red Bull&#8217;s launch of the livery for their 2023 RB19 in New York, where the team also announced their forthcoming partnership with Ford. The manufacturer will return to F1 in 2026 as an engine partner with Red Bull at the team&#8217;s recently established Red Bull Powertrains division. The team created their own engine manufacturing division when Honda left the sport in 2021.Verstappen dominated the season in 2022, winning 15 of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Max Verstappen is optimistic he is in a strong position to defend his Formula One world title this season but he and his Red Bull team expect a much stronger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[373,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorsports","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}