Red Bull expects F1 2018 benefits from five-day shift

Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes that bringing forward the release of his team's 2018 Formula 1 car by just five days will be enough to help it attack from the first race next year.

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Team Principal

The Milton Keynes-based team has again made great progress through this season, having turned its RB13 into a race winner and outscored Ferrari since the summer break.

But the team paid the price for a sluggish start to the year, where it only realised too late that there were wind tunnel correlation issues with its car that hampered its form early on.

In a bid to ensure that it is not so exposed to discovering problems too late, Red Bull is to next year shy away from its traditional policy of holding back the release of its car until the last possible moment so it can maximise development time.

Instead, it will bring forward the car finish date to five days earlier than it would have done before, something which Horner thinks will help it hit the ground running right from the off.

"We are focusing on a slightly earlier release target, which only involves about five days, but the design is so concertinaed and production schedules so tight, that those five days are actually pretty valuable in terms of being on the front foot rather than the back foot," he said.

"Our intention is to try to turn up at the first test in a position to knock about 100 laps out."

Red Bull has won two out of the last four races, thanks to Max Verstappen's success in Malaysia and Mexico, and was even able to battle for pole position in qualifying last weekend.

Horner believes that the fact there is no huge regulation change next year means there is some confidence within the organisation that it can carry its strong form forward.

"We've got pretty much regulation stability, so the lessons we take out of RB13 will go into RB14," he said.

"Obviously we are hopeful that on the engine side that performance and reliability improve over the winter, and they are fundamental aspects for us.

"We have demonstrated that we have got a really competitive chassis. I think since Hungary we've been very, very strong.

"So as I say, if we can take these learnings into next year's car then hopefully we can start on a stronger footing than the second or so we were off in Melbourne at the beginning of the year."