Ricciardo argues that Red Bull 'could be favourites' for 2018 title

Daniel Ricciardo believes that, if Red Bull can avoid another slow start to the campaign and more engine issues, then they could be considered as favourites for the 2018 world championship ahead of the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes, with the latter going for five in a row.

In 2017, Red Bull were expected to be claiming flags consistently, with the change in technical regulations favouring them, but engine issues hampered these efforts.

Ricciardo and Verstappen did get some success, with the latter winning two Grand Prix races in the second half of the campaign. The Australian believes that Red Bull will be a force if they can get off to a flyer in 2018.

"We just started off on the wrong foot," Ricciardo told Motorsport.com. "But the rate of development has been amazing, so I'm hoping if we can start on the right foot in 2018, you would argue we would be the favourites.

"If we started with Mercedes and Ferrari [levels of performance], our development is pretty strong. This year we started off the train. I guess the direction they thought was going to be the right way wasn't.

"All the development was going towards this kind of aero configuration and that wasn't the way to go. We saw in testing our car looked very basic. Looks aren't everything but it shows that the performance wasn't there.

"We started in the wrong direction and that spiralled for the first few races and then we brought it back."

It is Ricciardo's thought that Red Bull would have been contenders for the championship in 2017 if they had started quicker.

"We would be in the hunt," he continued.

"We would have taken it to the end. At the start of the year, the chassis wasn't where it needed to be. So it was both [chassis and engine].

"Now our chassis has improved a lot. It's back to the scenario where it's more engine than chassis at the moment.

"The chassis is still quite hard to get going but when it does, it's very strong."