Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes the top three teams will be equal in performance by midseason.
The next two races see the Milton Keynes outfit introduce their first round of upgrades with Honda bringing a new engine to Baku and then the traditional big aero package coming for Barcelona in two weeks.
This after a mixed start to 2019 in which Max Verstappen has finished no worse than fourth but the car has been the third fastest on the grid.
“I think (Honda) are making progress with it,” Horner told Racer initially concentrating on the power unit.
“There is stuff in the pipeline that will certainly help but the others aren’t standing still. It is all about evolution.
“Our goal this year has been all about closing the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari and we are doing that," he added.
“(In China) we split the Ferraris, we are certainly closer on pace to Mercedes. There will be more concertinaing that will happen between now and the halfway point of the year.”
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What has changed during the opening three rounds though is Red Bull setting targets with big claims, particularly from advisor Helmut Marko, being pulled back.
“I think doing that is a waste of time,” Horner even went as far as saying when it comes to win or podium predictions.
“My view has always been you look at what is the quickest car and you look at what is the quickest way we can get there, and that varies from race to race.
“It was Ferrari in Bahrain and it was Mercedes (in China) and obviously everyone is working as hard as they can to close that gap.
“To say it is by this race or this race, history dictates it is a fallacy.”
