The Milton Keynes based Red Bull team are now focussed on a mission to close the performance gap to the almighty Mercedes team.

When the season returns after the summer break the push is on for the bulls, after consolidating second position in the standings at the German grand prix.

The Milton Keynes squad have strengthened their position as F1’s second fastest team in recent races, but Christian Horner thinks they can now go even better and reduce Mercs pace advantage they have right now.

“There are some races on the calendar that will hopefully be favourable to us, and our objective is to try to close that gap still further to Mercedes ahead,” explained Horner.

“I think we were on average within 0.3 of a second here. And what is really encouraging is on that final stint, that Nico [Rosberg] wasn’t able to make any inroads into either of our drivers on the soft tyre.”

Although most teams have now switched focus and resource onto next years chassis, Horner still gains are there to be made in refining their package not to mention the Tag branded power unit.

“We still have a few bits that we can tidy up on the car this year that are in the pipeline, which have been kicked off some time ago,” he said.

“I think there is still progress that is going on with the engine and driveability and I think that there are some positive things in the pipeline that hopefully can help us try to reduce that gap yet further.”

After a successful points haul at the German GP last weekend where both drivers made the podium, Christian sees no reason why Red Bull cannot further increase the gap to Ferrari and secure second place.

“We have had a positive run of results recently,” he said. “We have come from more than 30 points behind Ferrari, to go into the summer break 14 points up.

“We have had great performance at a variance of circuits, from Austria to Silverstone to Budapest and now here: four very different venues and four very different surfaces. I think that bodes well for the second part of the season.

“But you always have to look ahead rather than behind, and on average we’ve been within 0.3 seconds of Mercedes on short run and long runs. So what we are looking is how can we further reduce that gap, and the points will then tend to take care of themselves.”

Red Bull could yet get in between the Mercedes cars on pure pace alone, and have a massive say in the championship.