Horner labels 2015 'a write-off' for Red Bull

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner wants Renault to risk reliability in search of performance as he labels the 2015 season "pretty much a write-off".

Daniel Ricciardo finished seventh in the Spanish Grand Prix with Daniil Kvyat in tenth as neither driver could match the pace shown by Ferrari or Williams in pursuit of Mercedes. While Horner is pleased both cars completed the race, he says any target of challenging in the championships has slipped away and as a result he wants Renault to push for performance even though he knows it will lead to penalties this year.

"I think it is positive Renault got four engines to the finish without any white smoke, so it is step forward from previous races," Horner said. "Focus desperately needs to turn to performance before too long.

"I think they know what the deficit is. The question is how are they going to make that up. They have things in the pipeline and things for later in the year but it is all a work in progress. From a team point of view we want it as soon as possible, obviously Renault is nervous about reliability so it will certainly be second-half of the year before we see anything significant.

"We are so far on the back foot with reliability anyway that, to be honest, this year is pretty much a write-off. You just have to go for it, even if they end up using 20 engines, it would be better to learn and make progress for next year. It would be far easier to make a fast engine reliable than to make a reliable car fast, so our philosophy has been to push performance."

And Horner says one of the frustrations is a lack of a clear recovery plan from Renault.

"I think they are looking at different scenarios and solutions, but they haven’t got a definitive direction yet. Hopefully they are homing in on it and things in the engine world take longer than in the chassis world."

Click here for Sunday's gallery from the Spanish Grand Prix

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter