Team Principal Christian Horner is sure Red Bull had the second fastest car behind Mercedes in all conditions during the Italian Grand Prix weekend at Monza.
Typically, the Temple of Speed wouldn't be expected to suit the Milton Keynes outfit due to the power deficit of their TAG Heuer-branded Renault engine but that wasn't the case as the RB13 starred in the rain on Saturday as Max Verstappen was second and Daniel Ricciardo third.
Substantial grid penalties would drop them down outside the top 10, but both would blitz the field in the race as Ricciardo went from 16th to fourth just four seconds off the podium and Verstappen recovered from being over a minute down and last after Lap 3 to finish 10th.
Contrast that to Ferrari who struggled in the tricky conditions in qualifying before Sebastian Vettel finished 36 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton on Sunday with the charging Australian between himself and teammate Kimi Raikkonen.
"It is an interesting one," Horner said looking back on the race, "the cars performed very well here. In Saturday's conditions in the wet, which is always a great equalizer, but again, better than expected, the car performed very strongly in the race today.
"Analysis will show it was the second strongest car outside of the Mercedes. To start as far behind the Ferraris as we did and only be four seconds behind Sebastian at the finish, was a very encouraging performance.
"Listening to the drivers in the debrief, it is still obvious where we lack in terms of lap time when following our competitors, but the chassis has worked at this particular circuit very well."
Red Bull has had some extra development time with the low downforce setup required for a circuit like Monza, having run similar wings in both Baku and Spa but Horner pinpointed to a different area where the Red Bull car was particularly strong.
"You can see how strong it was on the brakes, particularly with Daniel this weekend," he said. "The pass he made on Kimi was from an awfully long way back, so we have found a good balance here."
Regardless, the Briton admitted no team was capable of matching the Silver Arrows as they enjoyed their most dominant weekend of the season so far.
"Mercedes at this circuit were in a class of their own," Horner stated. "Any debate about where the current power hierarchy is in F1 ... this was a Mercedes whitewash."
