Red Bull team boss Christian Horner seized upon his team's "really encouraging" performance at the British Grand Prix to cast a positive outlook on the second half of the F1 season.
Beforehand, Red Bull was wary of its weekend at Silverstone, a power circuit where it anticipated to struggle relative to its front-running rivals, Mercedes and Ferrari.
However, a top-four qualifying effort by Max Verstappen and a strong run on race day by the Dutchman - although hindered by a clash with Sebastian Vettel - left the Milton Keynes-based outfit with a very positive feeling about the strength of its RB15-Honda package.
And Pierre Gasly also contributed to Red Bull's sense of fulfillment by turning around his own performance in Great Britain.
"It’s really encouraging to be this close to Mercedes around this type of track," Horner said.
“We know it is power-sensitive, and to be able to follow the Ferraris as closely as we were able to through Maggots, Becketts and Copse, Max was able to take some serious momentum behind the Ferraris there and that’s usually the sign of a pretty decent car.
"I think we’ve definitely unlocked some potential from the car.
"The car has behaved very well at Silverstone in high-speed and low-speed, we’ve looked competitive.
“And for Max to be as close to the pole time as much as he was, even without the [engine] hesitations maybe would have got even closer, and then in the race we didn’t see his true pace because he spent it stuck behind a Ferrari for 99 percent of it."
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F1's schedule will now take competitors to Hockenheim and to Hungary before two more power tracks - Spa and Monza - are dealt with.
"We’ve got confidence going to Hockenheim following the performance at Silverstone," added Horner.
"This, after Monza, is one of the most power-sensitive circuits on the calendar, you are flat out on the lap here for pretty much the entirety of the lap.
"So that’s encouraging for us, and certainly for a track like Hockenheim which is less power-sensitive than here.
"Hungary is a track we have always performed well at. Hopefully we can have a strong car there."
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