Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Red Bull 'in a better place' than last year, says Horner

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Red Bull racing team principal Christian Horner says that his team is much more favourably placed than it was this time in 2015, when ructions over power unit supplies seemed set to force the team out of Formula One.

"We are in a better position than 12 months ago," said Horner, who has been buoyed up by positive race performances from both of his drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat, despite less-than-ideal qualifying performances in Australia and Bahrain.

Last year the team's ailing fortunes led to speculation that Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz might pull the plug on the whole operation, but Horner is confident and relaxed that this situation no longer applies.

"Dietrich’s will is very consistent since day one," Horner told the official F1 website. "He wants to compete, and compete for victories.

"He understands the situation that we have - that we have a great team and that we are fighting back. That process has started this year."

Horner had already noted that Renault seems to have a new urgency when it comes to to developing its power unit this season since it returned as a full constructor.

"Progress is being made with the power unit and regulation changes are happening for 2017 already on the chassis side," he noted.

"There is a lot of discussion going on about the power unit situation for the future, so there is a much different outlook than one year ago.

Horner added that although this year's Red Bull is powered by a TAG Heuer-badged unit, there is no difference to the official Renault engine.

"They are both the same. They are identical. Whatever Renault benefit from also goes for the TAG Heuer-badged engine," confirmed Horner.

Horner added that Mario Illien is also now working directly with Renault on the evolution of the power plant, although Red Bull itself has no technical involvement in the arms-length arrangement.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.