Although - barring a hat-trick of Singapore-style disasters - third place in the Constructors' Championship goes to Ferrari, Christian Horner insists that Red Bull can take positives from 2017.

"We definitely can take positives out of it," he told the official F1 website. "We’ve won two races and had all in all twelve podiums finishes so that really is a positive side.

"Daniel has driven very well, so has Max," he continues. "But then we had more reliability issues than in the last ten years! Particularly on the power unit side with Max. That has been pretty disappointing, but right now things seem to be moving in the right direction.

"I am particularly pleased with is the second half of the season," he adds. "We’ve been much stronger than in the first half. The chassis is now right there."

So what was the problem at the start of the season?

"We had some issues at the beginning of the year," he admits. "The correlation between our simulations - one being the wind tunnel and the other being CFD - and we really didn’t start to address that before the first European race in Barcelona. But from there on the car got better and better."

Asked if the two wins were 'driver wins' or 'car wins', he replies: "In Azerbaijan Daniel drove a great race, but he also capitalised from the misfortune of others - but yes, he was there to get the result done.

"Malaysia was probably the first race in the hybrid era where we’ve won on genuine merit. We overtook Lewis Hamilton for the lead and pulled away."

Talking of Max, even teammate Daniel Ricciardo was surprised, not so much that he re-signed with Red Bull, but that he did it so early.

"Max is at an age where it is not about financial rewards, but all about performance," says Horner. "And what he has seen behind the scenes is how hard the team works and of what it is capable. And with the engine regulations fixed until 2020, we’re all relying on the convergence of the power unit. As soon as this happens we hopefully will give him a car that will compete right at the front of the field."