Horner admits Toro Rosso "better" than Red Bull

Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo both struggled on their way to ninth and 10th places respectively, finishing behind Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr in seventh and eighth.

"They deserved to beat us, they were better than we were today," admitted Horner.

"They've done a good job but we're nowhere near where we should be."

Brake problems thwart both cars

Horner explained that both of his drivers suffered brake issues, as a consequence of heat build-up while running in traffic.

"A very frustrating afternoon," said Horner. "Daniel picked up some damage to his front wing at the first corner, and thereafter running in traffic after the safety car seemed to put the temperatures through the roof.

"We got into brake troubles with both cars, and were just managing brakes in the second half of the race to be honest. We need to get to the bottom of the root cause.

"We didn't really have any pace from start to finish, so we need to get on top of that quickly in time for China.

"The positives are we have made progress with the driveability of the engine," he added. "That was a good response from Renault and our guys involved, we just need to engineer ourselves out of the problems we had in this race."

Parting shot at Renault

However, when asked after the race by the BBC's Tom Clarkson if he believed Renault F1 chief Cyril Abiteboul's promise of "the most driveable engine in F1 by the Monaco GP" he replied "did you get him to put any money on that?"