Horner confirms Red Bull had their worst season for reliability since 2006

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has confirmed that the team of the energy drink manufacturer had their worst season for reliability for over a decade, but went on to insist that Renault are working tirelessly to improve engine performance for the start of the 2018 campaign.

This past season was a forgettable one for Red Bull as Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were unable to sustain a title challenge up against Mercedes and Ferrari, mainly due to continuous engine reliability problems which led to grid penalties and some race retirements.

Over the course of the campaign, Renault had 320 grid penalties places for power element changes, while Mercedes and Ferrari only accumulated 20 each.

Horner confirmed 2017 was the worst season for reliability for Red Bull since 2006.

"Reliability-wise, engine reliability, it's probably been the worst year we've had since 2006 [when Red Bull ran Ferrari engines]," Horner told Autosport.

"Our engine partner [Renault] is working hard to address that over the winter. They need it for their own team as well.

"Hopefully we can then put a campaign together to really challenge Ferrari and Mercedes, who will not be standing still either during the course of next year."

It was not a season completely devoid of success, as Verstappen went on to claim Grand Prix wins in Malaysia and Mexico in the second half of the campaign. The issue for Red Bull mostly came in qualifying.

"We're seeing a bit of convergence on race day but still in qualifying, with these modes and potential use of oil and so on, there is still quite a differential certainly," Horner continued.

"The stopwatch doesn't lie. We're now going into year five of hybrid [engines] so one would hope by season five you do start to have convergence and they do start to understand some of the issues they have been struggling with."

Horner conceded that it was a season with two halves of contrasting fortunes for Red Bull but assured that everyone was working hard behind the scenes to make sure the team hit the ground running at the start of the new season.

"It's been a season of two halves for us," he said.

"At the beginning of the season, we undershot the target.

"Some issues with our tools over the winter created on track issues which it wasn't until we started running, we were able to see things weren't aligned with our simulation tools.

"Once we had understood that, we had a very clear development path.

"The whole team at Milton Keynes has worked incredibly well to get us from being a second off at race one to winning races on merit and arguably, in the last third of the season, having the strongest chassis.

"On our analysis, if you look at the last four or five races, on race day, we've had arguably the best chassis.

"That's satisfying to see that progress."