When you’re fourth in the Constructors Standings and no fewer than 136 points behind the leaders (Mercedes), you’ll take any good news you can get.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes that things are slowly starting to improve – which is what fans really wanted to hear.

“We’re definitely making progress with the car; Bahrain was actually our most competitive weekend,” said Horner. “The problem we’ve got is that we’re running in such a compromised state, so we’re not in an optimum window with the car. Our straight-line speeds are down and then you end up trimming wing out to try and get something sensible. And that hampers other things such as tyre warm-up and downforce.”

Red Bull’s pole position deficit has also went down from 2 seconds flat in Australia to 1.26 seconds in Bahrain. Ricciardo’s sixth place in Bahrain was also tied for his best of the season, as he also finished sixth in Australia.

We did say that you should never count a team like Red Bull out this quickly. They won’t challenge for the title, but we wouldn’t be surprised if we saw them win a race or two by the end of the year.

Of course, that’s easier said than done when you’re running an unreliable engine.

story references: Autosport

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