Red Bull boss Christian Horner says the outfit must carry its current momentum into the 2020 Formula 1 season, in the wake of an encouraging few performances.
Red Bull linked up with Honda for 2019 – acknowledging it would be a transition year – and started as the third-best team, but has made progress through the season.
Max Verstappen has led the team’s charge this year, taking victories in Austria and Germany, while he scored pole position in Hungary and went quickest in qualifying in Mexico.
“This year was always going to be a transitionary year with a new engine partner and all complements to Honda on the progress they’ve made this year,” said Horner.
“I think we’ve made good progress throughout the year, we’ve had a couple of wins, achieved a couple of poles – though we started there only once.
“In Monaco we were very competitive, Hungary as well we were in a position to potentially win that race, [in Austin] too, we’re on the right trajectory and it’s important we carry the momentum into the winter and then into the beginning of next year.”
Horner believes the performance the team demonstrated in Austin – in which Verstappen classified third and came close to pole – was masked by issues at recent events.
“At Suzuka we never got to see what the car was really capable of with Max being eliminated early on,” said Horner.
“In Singapore we recognised where we made a mistake, felt we left a bit on the table.
“I think the car is genuinely performing pretty well the last few races, and the encouraging thing for us is with stability of rules over the winter is that anything we learn this year we carry into the RB16.”
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