Red Bull boss Christian Horner is convinced his team is "in a very good place" to challenge Mercedes in 2020.
After having their period of domination ended by the Silver Arrows in 2014, success for the Milton Keynes-based outfit has been limited to races where Mercedes have struggled or where engine power is less crucial, such as Monaco and Mexico.
At the end of last year, however, the performance gap between the two teams was arguably the smallest it has been in the hybrid era, and now Red Bull is pushing to launch an attack from the first race in Australia.
"We've changed our philosophy going into this year, being really earlier [with the development of the car]," Horner said at a Red Bull event this week.
"With the stability of regulations, it is obvious that the RB16 is very much an upgrade and evolution of the RB15. It's focused on addressing some of its weak spots and building on its strengths.
"With that continuity, the team is really eager to go toe-to-toe, particularly with Mercedes, and take that challenge to them."
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At the same time, the Briton does admit knocking the Brackley-based team off their perch is a huge challenge.
"I think we're in a very good place to really take the fight to them this season, but let's not forget they are the reigning world champions," he warned. "They will go into the season very much as the favourites.
"We'll be looking to use all the lessons that we learned during the course of last year to take the fight to Mercedes and Ferrari."
In recent years, Red Bull's main problem has been a poor start to the season, leaving them playing catch up to their rivals for the rest of the year.
But with very little change in the regulations for 2020, Horner expects that to be less of an issue.
"There have been factors in recent years, like an engine transition or a front wing change," he noted.
"With stability across all areas - across drivers and across technical staff - we built momentum in the second half of last year.
"It's on those days that teamwork really counts, whether it's world record pit stops, whether it's getting the strategy right, or of course reliability."
And that brought the Red Bull boss onto Honda and the platform their partnership now gives the team to push on for a first F1 championship since 2013.
"For us, the big factor enabling us to mount a challenge is the power unit," he added. "Honda did such a great job in each introduction of a new specification engine last year.
"They brought more performance and more power, and it feels we're getting very, very close now to Mercedes. That puts the emphasis on the chassis side of the team to come up with the right chassis.
"We know we've got the drivers to get the job done, so going into this year we feel better prepared - and certainly earlier than we have for the last five years."
