Marko: We're not in a position to win the world championship

Speaking to Auto Motor und Sport, Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko said of the year ahead, "At this stage, we are not in a position to win the world championship."

"The Renault engine should be more reliable and more powerful than we had last year. We'll also be running with a competitive chassis right from the start."

"Mercedes has produced a new power unit for this season, so the question now is if they will have an even greater advantage or not. If our engine does what we're promised by Renault, then we should be a lot closer to them."

Marko acknowledges, "If you have two equal drivers, they both go for maximum performance and they push the engineers all the time to ensure the maximum out of their chassis and package."

"But when you have only one driver in a team that goes to those limits, you never know where you really are," quipped Marko in a direct dig at Ferrari who are heavily dependent on Sebastian Vettel and focus their programme on the German.

The outspoken Austrian is hoping that the era of his team having to play catch-up with late launches of their cars is over, "Adrian became aware of this when we were able to beat Mercedes on our own and that we can race at the front when the engine is performing at it's best."

"In past seasons we have tended to be stronger in the second half of the season. In retrospect, we always tried to leave the finalising of the car as late as possible, but it doesn't help to be forced to find a few hundredths every two weeks."

"So for us, it's more important that we go into this season ready and well prepared," added Marko.