Red Bull is confident it has a better overall package than its nearest rivals Force India, but is still expecting the next two races to be tough.
After a disappointing start to the season under Formula One's new aero-led regulations, a series of updates following the Spanish Grand Prix have improved Red Bull's results and helped contribute towards Daniel Ricciardo scoring podiums at the last three races. Yet with a big gap still prevalent to Mercedes and Ferrari, at the last round in Canada Force India emerged as Red Bull's closest on-track rival and nearly put Ricciardo's third consecutive podium finish under threat.
In the constructors' championship, Red Bull is already 102 points adrift of Ferrari but only holds a 41-point lead over Force India, which has outscored the Austrian team at three of the last four rounds. However, Red Bull boss Christian Horner is not expecting a consistent threat from Force India and believes power circuits, such as Montreal and the next two rounds in Baku and Austria, will be where the races are closest.
"It will be circuit specific, so these next two races Williams and Force India will probably be competitive," Horner said. "We have definitely put performance on the car at recent races. Max [Verstappen] was running a competitive second place when he retired [in Canada].
"You could see in qualifying we got closer and closer [to the front two teams], particularly in Q1 and 2 before engines get turned up in Q3. At a circuit that we knew would expose our weaknesses, we have come away with another podium."
Horner revealed that Red Bull's chief technical officer Adrian Newey, who has been working on other projects alongside F1 over the past three years, has stepped up his involvement since the team's disappointing showing in pre-season testing.
"Adrian has obviously been heavily involved in the direction and development, but he wasn't not involved over the winter. But definitely he's stepped things up since Barcelona test this year."
Horner admits the next two races will not be easy for Red Bull, especially without a major upgrade from engine suppler Renault, but he said the aim is to start challenging for top two positions on the podium as soon as possible.
"The next two races will be tough but it is encouraging the progress we have been making. We had great starts in Canada again which compensate a bit for what we miss out on a Saturday afternoon. So we will go to the next two races and try take as much out of them as we can. "We've scored four podiums in seven races -- and three in succession -- so we want to start getting onto the next two steps of the podium."