Horner now plays down Red Bull quit threat

Team principal Christian Horner is now playing down Red Bull's threat to quit Formula 1 amid a well below par start to their 2015 season.

Earlier, directing their anger at engine supplier Renault, the energy drink company's mogul Dietrich Mateschitz and Dr Helmut Marko said the situation could move either the French carmaker or Red Bull to pull out. But team boss Horner has now clarified Mateschitz's remarks.

"If you look closely at his comments," he is quoted by DPA news agency, "he was encouraging Renault to continue to improve and do the job properly."

Horner said Renault, as a company and a F1 competitor, is in fact "better than we see of them now", insisting all the comments have been about "how to deal with the current situation".

"It's a long season but hopefully at the end we will look back and say this was a low point but we recovered," he added.

For Red Bull, it is a much more promising time for its junior F1 team, Toro Rosso.

Boss Franz Tost has been notably less critical of Renault, telling De Telegraaf newspaper: "It is not good for our cooperation if we openly criticise.

"I am convinced that sooner or later they will come up with a solution," he said, referring to Renault's performance and reliability issues.