Red Bull must "make sure we beat" Mercedes at this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, according to team boss Christian Horner.
The Anglo-Austrian outfit arrives on the Cote D'Azur after back-to-back losses to Lewis Hamilton in Portugal and Spain, leaving Max Verstappen 14 points behind in the Drivers' Championship.
Given the emphasis on downforce around Monaco's streets, traditionally it has been considered one of Red Bull's better tracks despite them only scoring one win in the past seven races.
And ahead of this weekend, 2019 winner Lewis Hamilton does see them as the favourites.
“We don’t know what to expect,” he said on Wednesday. “Red Bull were incredibly close two years ago.
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“It’s a much different car, we have different tyres. Red Bull is going to be very, very hard to beat this weekend.
"This is a track that has always been strong for them and, given how close the gap is between us, you can imagine this weekend they could be ahead.
“But we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that’s not the case.”
Two years ago, it was Verstappen who pushed the seven-time world champion all the way, but prior to that, his record was patchy in Monaco.
“I think it’s been a bit up and down, 2016 and 2018 we did have a good car here, and the other years since I was with the team was not that easy let’s say, it just depends on the competitiveness of the car, from the start," commented the Dutchman.
“A few years we were a bit off and some other years we had a bit better start to the year. This year we had a competitive start so I hope it is the same here but every year is different so I don’t know at the moment.”
But given how strong the momentum currently is in Mercedes' favour, Horner does feel its essential for Red Bull to strike back.
“Sector 3 [in Spain] sometimes gives an indicative view of how the car could be at Monaco, so hopefully we should be competitive,” he said.
“I think every Grand Prix this year bar Bahrain, there's been less than a tenth of a second between ourselves and the pole position, so it's been phenomenally close.
“And Monaco, we need to make sure we beat Mercedes in Monte Carlo, but we know that that will be incredibly tough.
"I think we've seen it since Bahrain, their race pace has been better than ours at each Grand Prix that we've seen so far,” he added.
“And I think that their tyre degradation has been better than ours. So we knew these last two circuits [Spain and Portugal] would play to their strengths.
“They’ve done that but we're an awful lot closer than we have been and I think if we can find some more race pace. It's still very very tight between the two cars.”
