Christian Horner says Red Bull's pace in the Australian Grand Prix showed it can challenge Ferrari on occasions this season.
Sebastian Vettel led for a number of laps but ultimately had to settle for third place behind the two Mercedes drivers having not run the medium tyre. Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth and similarly only ran the soft and supersoft, providing a number of crossover points where both cars were on the same tyre and Horner was encouraged by what he saw.
"Fundamentally the chassis is working very well," Horner said. "The degradation on the tyres has been very good. Our stint lengths seemed as long as the best, and we were competitive. When Ricciardo was in clear air on the same tyre he was doing the same laptimes as Seb.
"So I think some real encouraging facts. I think we got the strategy right, and good pitstops, so it was a solid performance."
And Horner says the overall pace showed by Red Bull is still some way from its overall target of winning races but provides a strong starting point for 2016.
"I think here at this track we certainly had the third fastest car. Particularly in the race. I think it’s encouraging. It’s not where we want to be, we want to obviously focus on moving forward but I think it’s encouraging that the characteristics of the car have continued from last year and evolved, and we’ve got a very good product to work with."
Australian Grand Prix - Driver ratings
REPORT: Rosberg beats Hamilton after huge Alonso crash
AS IT HAPPENED: 2016 Australian Grand Prix
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
