3:12 Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says chief technical officer Adrian Newey has been inspired by working with new engine supplier Honda Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says chief technical officer Adrian Newey has been inspired by working with new engine supplier Honda Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes Adrian Newey has been inspired by Honda's arrival at the team for the 2019 Formula 1 season. Having fallen behind Mercedes and Ferrari in the hybrid turbo engine era, Red Bull believe their move to effective works status with Honda engines will increase their chances of beating their biggest two rivals in future seasons. Conclusions from F1 Testing The new partnership enjoyed an encouraging pre-season and Horner says Newey, the team's revered designer, has been energised by the collaboration. "The engine change has stimulated the whole team - and particularly Adrian," Horner told Sky Sports News. "He sees that the engine is now getting closer and closer to the performance of the front-running teams. That's really motivated him and he's working very hard with all the guys and girls back in Milton Keynes. "Hopefully we can look forward to a good season. Our job is to close that gap to Ferrari and Mercedes." 0:40 There is a new chapter for F1 in 2019, Sky Sports F1, the Home of Live and Exclusive F1. To celebrate becoming the home of live and exclusive F1, Sky Sports F1 will be available for just £10 a month from March 1 There is a new chapter for F1 in 2019, Sky Sports F1, the Home of Live and Exclusive F1. To celebrate becoming the home of live and exclusive F1, Sky Sports F1 will be available for just £10 a month from March 1 Where will Red Bull be in Melbourne? Although a crash and reliability trouble compromised Red Bull's end to pre-season at Barcelona last week, the former world champions head to next week's season-opener in Australia optimistic they have made progress. "It's clear Ferrari after the second test look very strong," said Horner. "Mercedes are going to be there or thereabouts, they're the reigning world champions so they're not going to be slacking. "I think we have definitely closed that gap. We will see not just in Melbourne, because that's a little bit of a unique track, but look over the first three races and then ask me again then how we're faring." Behind the scenes of Sky F1's promo Newey's 'dream' becomes reality Horner was speaking at the prestigious Geneva Motor Show, where Aston Martin's Newey-designed Valkyrie hypercar was revealed after several years of design and planning. After turning down a big-money offer to join Ferrari in 2014, Newey has since dovetailed his time between F1 and wider projects undertaken by Red Bull Advanced Technologies, such as the 1,000 brake-horsepower Valkyrie. Something caught your eye? 👀🔥 Christian and Adrian reveal the first verification prototype of the Adrian Newey and Red Bull Advanced Technologies designed @AstonMartin Valkyrie at #GIMSSwiss 👌 pic.twitter.com/L4TBqbFYiR — Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) March 5, 2019 "It's the realisation of three years of hard work taking Adrian's uncompromising design and incorporating it into a beautiful Aston Martin," said Horner. "It's a very proud moment for us. It was Adrian's dream, we didn't know how we were going to achieve it, and then together with Aston… this is the result. They are all sold and it's the start of a family of cars that are going to be announced." Get the dedicated Sky Sports F1 channel - the exclusive home of all live F1. Get Sky Sports F1.<doc-sep>Although the team is aware that rival Ferrari appears to have the edge at the moment, Red Bull's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko said that it had never been more encouraged about progress than right now. "So far if I talk about Red Bull and Toro Rosso, we had a very good time," Marko told Sky. "I would say we never had such good preparation for the season. For both teams." While Red Bull was always convinced that Honda could deliver enough power, Marko said the big question mark had been reliability. However, with both Red Bull teams running without major trouble, Marko said those worries had been eased. "It's a new period. We don't look back. We look forward," he said. "It's a very good relationship. "The concern was of course reliability and so far that's not a problem at all. It's a new culture as well. But it fits well with our people." Marko reckoned that Ferrari has emerged as the early favourite, but he believes Red Bull is in the mix and could win races with Honda in 2019. "What I saw yesterday on the circuit, Ferrari for sure at the moment is the fastest car. Behind that it's Red Bull and Mercedes. Let's see what can do until Melbourne. "But we are quite optimistic that this year we can win races from our own strength, and not only if others have trouble or special circuits like Monte Carlo or Singapore."<doc-sep>Published 03/10/2019, 3:53 AM PDT The Red Bull team are pretty high on confidence at the moment with new partners Honda. In fact, team principal Christian Horner is of the opinion that Honda holds the key to kick-starting their title challenge once again. ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad From 2010 to 2013, the Austrian outfit sealed four straight Drivers’ and Constructors’ title-doubles. However, since the advent of the V6 Hybrid era, they have not fought for the title. Naturally this lead to a breakdown in their relationship with former engine supplier, Renault. 2018 was the acid test for Honda as Red Bull assessed the progress of sister team Toro Rosso. Satisfied with the results, the Japanese manufacturer have linked up with Red Bull for 2019. Now, Horner is confident that his team can fight for the title again. ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad “I think the most important thing is to work as a team,” said Horner during a press conference in Japan.” “We’ve achieved more than 50 Grand Prix victories and eight World Championships working as one team.” Christian Horner – Red Bull Racing Team Principal “The ingredient we’ve had missing the last five years has been the power unit. “We believe in this new relationship with Honda that that missing ingredient is now available to us. ADVERTISEMENT Article continues below this ad “I think working collectively as a team, as things have started, then the opportunities are massive for the future.” Looking back at the first meeting between Marko and Yamamoto, Horner joked: “Well it’s quite interesting as I drive past McDonald’s every day to work where they met – in England there’s a happy meal, I think they had a happy meal that day and if we win five races I think they’ll change the name of the happy meal to the Red Bull-Honda meal!” “It’s been a fantastic start to the relationship, we thoroughly enjoyed working with our colleagues at Honda, the product is great, the ambition is there – and commitment. And we’re really excited.”<doc-sep>The French manufacturer has trailed Mercedes and Ferrari in the V6 turbo-hybrid engine era and came under pressure last year from Honda, which had previously been cut adrift in the pecking order. However, Renault said a new engine design heralded a “substantial” step forward over the winter, which it says has been validated by the on-track running in pre-season testing over the last two weeks. “Everything we actually developed and measured on the dyno were the same as what we see out on track,” said Taffin, Renault’s engine technical director. “It was quite similar the last few years, but this year it is again where we are. “I think we hit our targets as far as we can say. We're happy with what we have achieved.” Renault F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul described the gains before the start of the year as “the biggest” it has made since the V6 engines were introduced in 2014. That was a deliberate response to last season’s disappointing engine programme, which Renault admitted was a result of underestimating the progress it needed to make. Taffin agreed that “a big step” and believes it is significant in the context of Renault’s “winter development time”. Asked by Motorsport.com how aggressive it had been, Taffin said: “We have set some high targets for this year, which we hit. “But obviously it's the same thing; we need to go out on track and see where we will be, and we will have to wait until Melbourne to see that in quali and the race.” One element that partially disguised Renault’s progress was its poor performance through the speed traps early in the first week of testing. However, that was not representative as it was initially impacted by a rear-wing problem that meant Renault was avoiding using DRS. Chassis technical director Nick Chester said: “We know we were slow speed trap-wise first week, but particularly seeing as we didn't use DRS much. “This week we've been climbing up the speed traps, I think the speeds today were a bit more sensible. “So, I'm not too worried. We know where we're running on rear wing, and we know what we're doing with our programme. “We're reasonably comfortable.” Daniel Ricciardo, Renault F1 Team R.S. 19 and Lando Norris, McLaren MCL34 Photo by: Jerry Andre / Sutton Images<doc-sep>
While the Milton Keynes-based outfit has viewed its switch to Honda as a long-term project to deliver the world championship, it is already full of praise about its first tie-up. Red Bull had an encouraging opening day of pre-season testing at Barcelona in Spain, with Max Verstappen completing 128 laps to set the fourth quickest time. "Power is a dominating factor, but I have to say that the installation of this engine into the chassis is probably the best one we have ever had," said team boss Christian Horner. "When you look how neatly integrated it is into the chassis, it really is a thing of beauty. "The whole engineering team collectively with Honda have done a great job in terms of installing what looks like a Swiss clock into the back of our chassis." Earlier in the day, Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost, whose outfit is also supplied by Red Bull, said he had no doubts that his sister team could win races this year. Asked by Motorsport.com if he shared Tost's optimism, Horner said: "I'm sure Franz is going to be on the podium this year as well! "Look, it's great to have that enthusiasm and optimism that Franz has shown. We're excited to be working with Honda in what is a true partnership, as opposed to a customer-supplier relationship. And we're really already feeling the benefits of that. "It's not going to be a fast process, there's no silver bullet, and I think as the organisations learn more about each other and their strengths and relative weaknesses, it's something that will grow over a period of time. But we're not actually putting any timescale on that." Horner also revealed that the state of readiness that Honda had for the pre-season testing programme was also more advanced than his outfit had experience with Renault in recent years. "We already saw from Toro Rosso last year that great progress was made, and of course our decision was based on what we could see and measure. And I have to say so far, we've been very impressed with everything we've seen. "It's the first time in 12 years that our factory's had four complete engines in it. That's not happened before."