Honda 2019 engine installation 'a thing of beauty' - Horner

Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner believes the RB15's power unit installation achieved by the team and Honda is perhaps the best it has ever had.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit's first day of running with its 2019 car suffered no particular issues, either with the RB15 chassis or with Honda's engine.

Max Verstappen put 128 laps on the new car on Monday in Barcelona and concluded his day with the fourth fastest time, a result that reflected an encouraging start for the Red Bull-Honda partnership.

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Horner however underlined the engineering prowess associated with the RB15's engine integration.

"Power is a dominating factor, but I have to say that the installation of this engine into the chassis is probably the best one we have ever had," he said.

"When you look how neatly integrated it is into the chassis, it really is a thing of beauty.

"The whole engineering team collectively with Honda have done a great job in terms of installing what looks like a Swiss clock into the back of our chassis."

Red Bull has been ramping up its optimism over the winter, and earlier in the day, Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost conveyed his belief that race wins would be in order for the Red Bull-Honda combo.

"Look, it's great to have that enthusiasm and optimism that Franz has shown," said Horner.

"We're excited to be working with Honda in what is a true partnership, as opposed to a customer-supplier relationship. And we're really already feeling the benefits of that.

"It's not going to be a fast process, there's no silver bullet, and I think as the organisations learn more about each other and their strengths and relative weaknesses, it's something that will grow over a period of time. But we're not actually putting any timescale on that."

"We already saw from Toro Rosso last year that great progress was made, and of course our decision was based on what we could see and measure. And I have to say so far, we've been very impressed with everything we've seen.

"It's the first time in 12 years that our factory's had four complete engines in it. That's not happened before."

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