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Red Bull resurgence promising for future – Horner

Christian Horner says Red Bull overtaking Ferrari for second in the F1 world constructors' championship bodes well for the remainder of 2016 having produced strong performances at a variety of circuits.

The Red Bull team principal has taken huge pride in seeing Red Bull overhaul a 40-point swing on Ferrari during the four races in July to take an 18 point advantage into the summer break.

As well as taking the maximum from circuits which suit the strengths of the Red Bull, Horner has been impressed by the team's performance at tracks where Ferrari had been fancied to be more competitive, singling out the team's first double podium at Hockenheim - the first since Hungary 2014.

"Our objective was to go into the summer break ahead of Ferrari, and we have managed to do that this weekend with a 40 point advantage and a double podium, which was beyond all of our expectations," Horner said. "There has been ebbs and flows but that is where we are in the constructors' championship at this stage in the year.

"We've had great performance from a variance of circuits, from Austria to Silverstone to Budapest and, now, here - four very different venues, with very different surfaces - and I think that bodes well for the second part of the season."

Looking towards the second half of the season Horner says Red Bull's main focus is closing the performance deficit to Mercedes rather than concentrating on beating Ferrari.

Horner has hinted at a handful of updates and tweaks are still to be applied to the Red Bull RB12 but the bulk of development has now switched to 2017 ahead of the regulations revamp.

"There are some races on the calendar that will hopefully be favourable to us and our objective is to try and close that gap still further to Mercedes ahead," he said. "So we were on average within 0.3 of a second of them here [Hockenheim], and what was really encouraging on that final stint was that Nico [Rosberg] was not able to make any inroads into either of our drivers on the soft tyre."

Zdroj: crash.net