Marko: Red Bull focus is fully on 2019

After the this season's finale in Abu Dhabi in November, a new era beckons for the Red Bull and Torro Rosso in which many changes are on the cards for the team desperately seeking to return to the form they had enjoyed before F1's second turbo generation.

On the driver front, they are losing their longtime warrior Daniel Ricciardo to Renault, but welcome highly-rated Pierre Gasly to the senior team alongside Max Verstappen.

At Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat returns to the team he knows well and he will be joined by AN Other in the sister car.

But the biggest change, for the Red Bull team in particular, will be the final ditching of Renault and fully embrace Honda with both teams - all eggs will be in the same basket - thus no surprise that the focus at Milton Keynes right now is entirely on next year's RB15.

Speaking to Kronen Zeitung, Marko confirmed, "The euphoria we had at the beginning of the year has given way to reality. We have fallen behind Mercedes and Ferrari, but we want to end the season on a high, even if our focus is fully on 2019."

"The development we are seeing make us optimistic, there is great energy from the Honda side. We are witnessing extreme dedication and great commitment, of course also from our Red Bull side."

"After Singapore, some of our key people were in Tokyo for a fact-finding visit and to exchange ideas. After all, it's the first time in F1 that Red Bull has had a full works effort behind us."

"Honda have all the means to succeed. Sakura [where their R&D build the F1 engine] is an incredible operation. And what we've seen with Toro Rosso is everything that Honda has promised has happened - progress is obvious."

In terms of logistics for the partnership, Marko explained, "Honda has its own headquarters 15 minutes from our factory in Milton Keynes, this is where it happens and from where we run the operations. In the past, we always had to wait and see what plans Renault had for us, now everything is optimised for our benefit."

"We want to be competitive right from the start of the season and compete for victories. Whether we have enough to challenge for the title, I cannot say right now, but our ambition is obviously the World Championship."

Finally, Red Bull's design guru Adrian Newey is notorious for delivering his creations at the very last minute before testing, but for 2019 Marko is adamant: "The car will be ready in time!"