04/07/2018
NEWS STORY
Sunday's win in Austria marked Max Verstappen's third successive podium, and while teammate Daniel Ricciardo suffered an exhaust issue that meant he failed to see the flag, it marked the team's third win of the season, thereby matching Mercedes and Ferrari.
Languishing 58 points behind the title leaders in the team standings, Christian Horner is adamant that but for technical issues and mistakes his drivers and team would be leading both championships, and the Briton hasn't given up on winning both.
"Nine races, three victories, the same amount of wins as Ferrari and Mercedes," he told reporters ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix.
"Our Achilles heel has been not scoring with both cars, either through reliability our other incidents," he admitted. "Formula One's full of ifs, buts and maybes, but if you look at the positions that we were in and should have been in then we should be leading the championship today. But the scoreboard is slightly different to that."
Asked if he believes Red Bull remains a serious title contender, he said: "I think that we definitely have an outside chance.
"We've closed the gap over the last few races," he continued, "and there's still a long, long way to go. What are there, twelve races left? So I think you'd have to consider us as an outside contender. And certainly our determination within the team is to keep pushing and try and ensure that we're getting both cars ahead of our opponents.
"There are some circuits coming up that should play to our strengths, places like Hungary and Singapore," he added. "There are circuits that will not be so good for us but I think one of our major assets is that as a race team we are extremely versatile and we've been very creative on strategy, pit stops, pit work. As a team, the team's working extremely well.
"So, yes I think there is a chance in both championships and we certainly haven't written anything off at this point in the year."