Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko believes the 2020 car is a “step closer” to making Max Verstappen Formula 1 champion.
The Anglo-Austrian outfit had a strong pre-season with 780 laps across the six days and Verstappen hinted at the pace of the RB16 by finished less than a tenth behind Valtteri Bottas on the final day despite using one-step harder tyres than the Mercedes driver.
Heading to the first race, there is still an expectation that the six-time defending champions remain the team to beat, but Marko feels this year does represent a legitimate chance to end their dominant run.
“We have come a step closer to our goal of making Max Verstappen the youngest world champion,” Marko was quoted by PlanetF1, with 2020 the last year the Dutchman can take that record.
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“The car does what we expected and what we hoped for and we start the season with a very positive feeling.
“Testing is deceiving and the teams hide what they really are doing, but we are certainly much better prepared than in recent years.
“I think we can fight with Mercedes for victory in Australia.”
Something else giving Red Bull reason for optimism is the ever-improving Honda engine which wasn’t pushed too hard during testing and worked almost perfectly, something that can’t be said of Mercedes.
“I have to say from a reliability point of view, Honda has looked pretty strong at this test, and of course these six days are all about understanding the package in all conditions,” team boss Christian Horner commented.
“So far touch wood. Reliability has looked very encouraging.”