Red Bull team boss Christian Horner is sure Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo are more than capable to battle with world champion Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel should they produce a strong enough car in 2018.

Once again it has been a year of playing catch up for the Milton Keynes outfit following correlation issues in development which led to the RB13 chassis not matching up with expectations and a TAG Heuer-branded Renault engine which remains a little underpowered and less reliable than their main rivals.

Significant progress has been made, however, and that has allowed the Red Bull duo to enter the fight between Mercedes and Ferrari with Verstappen shining in particular with two wins in Malaysia and Mexico.

In fact, since the summer break, they have outscored the Scuderia showing they are once again a force to be reckoned with, now the key for Red Bull is to maintain that progress into next year.

"We have got regulation stability, so the lessons from RB13 will go into 14," Horner explained. "We are hopeful on the engine side that performance and reliability will improve and we have demonstrated we have a really competitive chassis since Hungary.

"If we can take these learnings into next year's car, we can start on a strong footing rather than the second or so we were off at the beginning of the year."

Further efforts to overcome early season problems are also being made with work on the 2018 car beginning a little earlier than in previous seasons.

"We are focusing on a slightly earlier release target, which only involves about five days," the Red Bull boss added. "But design is so concertinaed and production so tight, that that five days is actually pretty valuable in terms of being on the front rather than the back foot.

"Our intention is to turn up at the first test in the position to knock out 100 laps on the first day. That has to be the target."

If that can be done, then Horner is sure his two men behind the wheel will be more than ready to be part of what would be a very highly anticipated rivalry.

"I think in Max, in Daniel, in Seb, you have got some fantastic drivers there that are able to go wheel to wheel," he claimed, including the German who won his four titles at Red Bull.

"Max is only 20. I think if we can give him a competitive car, he absolutely is a champion in waiting. You can see in the great drivers that they stand out at big moments. Max is doing exactly that.

"I feel very confident in our drivers having the ability," he continued. "If we can give them the tools to go shoulder to shoulder with [Hamilton] and hopefully have a great fight, [it] will be great for the sport."