It's Only A Matter Of Time Before It Rises Again

Red Bull won four consecutive world championships in the V8 era but has beena bit-part player since 2014. Can the team deliver on its ambition now?

- Jonathan Noble

THIS IS YET another season in which many observers have predicted that Horner’s team will emerge as the greatest threat to Mercedes. But despite the obvious strengths of Red Bull’s young, ambitious driver line-up and technical strength in depth, questions remain about the engine.

While those fundamentals have not changed ahead of the latest campaign, singling out one factor for underperformance can lead a team to complacency and folly. Formula 1 is a constantly changing sport that demands continuous evolution – and restless self-examination. It would have been very easy for Red Bull to carry on blaming Renault for its competitive shortfalls, even in the face of evidence that the team itself had authored some of its own troubles, particularly last season.

Instead it has carefully revised many of its behind-the-scenes processes and structures with a view to starting its 2018 F1 campaign in better shape than it has in seasons immediately past.

“You can feel within the team there is an air of ambition and, despite difficulties, the team has never lost its competitive desire and edge,” Horner tells Autosport. “It’s only a matter of time before it rises again.”

While Horner cites 2015’s annus horribilis with Renault – during which their partnership nearly dissolved entirely – as the lowest point most recently, last year indubitably ran it close in terms of disappointment, even though the team notched up three wins. The simple fact is that Red Bull failed to capitalise on a new package of technical rules that made aerodynamics a performance differentiator once again; it began the season with a half-baked offering that enabled Ferrari to take on the mantle of being Mercedes’ closest competitor.