Horner admits gap to Brawn too big

Although Red Bull scored four more points than Brawn at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday, Jenson Button's win meant his team is still 39.5 points in front of the Milton Keynes-based squad after seven races.

Horner, whose drivers finished second and third in Istanbul, said he was pleased with the amount of points scored.

He admitted, however, that the points gap to Brawn is still too big.

"It is going to be very difficult for us to make up the ground to Brawn, but we have taken four points out of them in the constructors' championship today," said Horner. "It is still a big lead but still a long way to go."

He added: "To get 14 points is a great team score. But obviously it is frustrating that we were unable to beat Jenson today, who I had to say drove an exceptional race."

Horner is hopeful that his team will be able to be closer to Brawn in next week's British Grand Prix, where Red Bull will have more updates.

"The rate of development is so quick at the moment," said Horner. "The guys at the factory are doing a great job. They have worked tirelessly to get the upgrades to the cars here.

"We have got another upgrade coming for Silverstone, and other developments on the pipeline. We will keep pushing as hard as we can and Silverstone is a high-speed track, hopefully we can push the Brawns a bit harder there."

Button beat Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel on Sunday, despite starting from second place behind the German.

Vettel lost the lead of the race on the first lap after a driving error which ruined his three-stop strategy.

Horner reckons even without the mistake it would have been hard to win.

"I think it would have been very difficult to beat them anyway today," he added. "The best chance that we had was on the three-stop, but it relied on Sebastian being ahead of Jenson.

"We decided to continue with that strategy because basically we would have conceded the race on lap 15, but even before the race we discussed that strategy would only work if Sebastian got past Jenson on the second stint, which unfortunately we didn't manage to do. That then cost obviously Sebastian a bit of time behind him.

"Then there was a tremendous middle stint from Mark, a really impressive middle stint with a heavy car. He did a very impressive job. He was just quicker in the middle stint and that is what flipped them around. Mark, you mustn't take anything away from it because it was an exceptionally good drive."