Formula One news

Red Bull hoping to end dip in form

Christian Horner is hoping to get Red Bull Racing's season back on track after some below-par performances in the past two races. The team principal is looking into improving the reliability of the RB3 primarily after its potential has been marred by retirements in around half of both David Coulthard's and Mark Webber's races this season.

Horner said: "Looking back at the last few races, our performance has not matched our expectations. The RB3 has shown genuine pace, for example in both Monaco and then in Canada, where Mark qualified on the third row in sixth place.

"Both cars qualified in the top ten on the grid in Monaco, only for David to have his time removed for having impeded Kovalainen. David had a competitive race in Barcelona finishing fifth and Mark got his first points of the season in Indy after a solid run to seventh. These performances have shown the potential of the car, which has been marred by a depressingly high number of retirements."

Horner says that the the team is working particularly hard on improving the durability of the RB3's temperamental gearbox but also expect updates to the car at last week's Spa test to improve the team's pace at Nurburgring next weekend before seeing a significant improvement for the Turkish Grand Prix on 26 August. The former F3000 team boss hopes that these changes will make Red Bull leaders of the fiercely competitive midfield pack again.

He said: "It has become clear that notably Renault, Toyota and Honda, have made a step forward. At the moment, three tenths of a second puts you either at the front or the back of a group consisting of Renault, Honda, Toyota, Williams and ourselves.

"We have some developments that we tested in Spa last week and a significant upgrade coming for Turkey, with a few new elements on the car next weekend at the Nurburgring, as we try to get the most out of RB3 and try and get back to the front of that group again.

"I think it's going to be very tight all through the rest of the season as it is just so competitive in that group at the moment. Of course, it's not just down to us, as those other teams are also pushing their development forward."

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