Team principal Christian Horner believes that Red Bull proved that they can compete with Constructors’ Championship leaders Mercedes after they put in a strong performance in Monaco last weekend.
Mercedes have been the outstanding team in the early stages of the 2014 campaign, winning all six races and claiming five one-two finishes.
However, Horner believes that Daniel Ricciardo proved the gap is closing on Sunday after finishing the race in third on the tail of Lewis Hamilton.
Horner said: “It is the first time we have raced Mercedes this year. Particularly in the last third of the race, Dan was the quickest car on the track so we can take a lot of confidence from that.”
Red Bull sit second in the Constructors Championship, 141 points adrift of the Brackley-based outfit as they prepare to head to Montreal.
The 40-year-old admits that Mercedes may be able to take advantage of the long straights when the season continues in Canada but hopes that they can claw back some points in the other events on the horizon.
He continued: “You go from one extreme to the other. Monaco is all about handling characteristics, the next event is straight-line performance, so it is going to be very interesting to see how we fare against the Mercedes-powered teams in Montreal.
“But we are only at race six; there is still a long way to go in this championship. We are clearly the second quickest team at the moment and we are nibbling into the gap of Mercedes, so it is nothing short of commitment, hard work and clever design that is going to close that gap.”
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