Q & A with Christian Horner

Christian Horner: Our target is very much to build on the momentum that we saw in the final three races. We were competitive in the final three races of last year and we'll be looking to start from that point with the new car.

Ferrari and McLaren are obviously going to be extremely competitive again and are the benchmark, and then I predict a pretty tight group thereafter, which will hopefully consist of ourselves, BMW, Renault, probably Williams, and who knows with Toyota and Honda. It's very difficult to make predictions at this time of year. We're confident we've made good progress with this car. How good? We'll see in Melbourne. But we're happy with the progress that we've seen over the RB3.

Q. You now have a very strong team at Red Bull so the expectation from the outside is that you will improve.

CH: We will improve, and the group is working together much more cohesively with the benefit of continuity with both people and engine suppliers. This has been the smoothest winter that I've seen at Red Bull and you can start to see the strength of the group coming to the surface now. It's not down to two or three people. We've 570 people in Red Bull Racing, which is an average sized team in Formula One. You rely on all of the departments making their contribution to the performance of the car. But I'm confident that we will see a step forward this year.

Q. You expect to have a faster car than last year and better reliability, so can the drivers make a step forward to bring you the results?

CH: That's why we employ them. Last year reliability cost us approximately 25 points. It's a key thing that we've looked to address in the new car. With the new challenge of the four-race gearbox and the standard electronics, there are new technical challenges for this year, but I'm confident that we've dealt with those. With the issues that we had last year, we should see a more reliable RB4 and more competitive. Without reliability, it costs you track time and it costs you performance. We've put a lot of focus into reliability over the winter.

Q. Would you say you've focused on reliability?

CH: Adrian (Newey) has been very focused on performance and Geoff (Willis) has been very focused on reliability. So we've got a very good balance there.

Q. You haven't compromised pace for reliability?

CH: I don't believe we've compromised any pace. The important thing is that we've understood the issues that we had in last year's transmission, which were inherent with a late engine change at the end of 2006. Whilst we improved and polished the solution last year, we fundamentally believe we've addressed it in the new transmission that's been running for several thousand kilometres now on dynos back in Milton Keynes. So we expect to see a big step forward in reliability this year.

Q. What do you think of the proposal to introduce budget caps?

CH: I think it's a sensible proposal. I think as long as it's properly audited and policed, it's a far better way of saying it's down to a team how they commit their resources than just restricting heavily wind tunnel time or simulators or frozen chassis. The devil with all these things is in the detail, but I think the concept is right, and it's really down to the teams now to work with the FIA to find a solution that works, because costs year on year explode. We have to come up with a plan.

Q. What position would you be happy with at the end of the season?

CH: It's going to be such a tight group that we're going to be operating in. We're focusing on improving our performance from last year. Where we'll be, we'll see in Melbourne. We expect to make a significant step from where we finished last year.

Q. Is your main rival BMW?

CH: BMW is obviously a target, Renault is a benchmark with Fernando back there. They're not going to have been sleeping over the winter, and with the same engine they're the ideal benchmark for us. Really all the teams are main competitors. We're going to be in a tight group and it's going to swing during the course of the season I'm sure.

Q. Do you think the results will vary between different types of track?

CH: I think you'll probably get that as we saw last year between McLaren and Ferrari. We'll probably see that again this year. Some races for example with Williams we were considerably quicker, some races they were quicker than us. But I think we should have a much better platform now which should give us good performance.

Q. Will the standard ECU be a disadvantage for teams other than McLaren?

CH: It shouldn't be. It's policed heavily by the FIA to ensure that there is fair play. I think initially obviously McLaren should have an advantage because it's a system that they've potentially grown up with. But our engine partner Renault are getting on top of the issues quite quickly. They've made very good progress during the Christmas break and by the time we get to Melbourne there should be reasonable clarity.

Q. What are your plans for the future with Renault?

CH: We're very happy with the engine partnership with Renault and don't foresee any changes in the near future.

Q. Will you sign a test driver for this year?

CH: We will confirm later today Sebastien Buemi as our test and reserve driver.