Red Bull not surprised by McLaren form

Despite starting the season with the car to beat, Red Bull has failed to stamp home its authority on the championship - and on McLaren's duo Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, who lead the way after their 1-2 in Montreal.

Although McLaren's back-to-back successes have given the outfit tremendous momentum, Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner is looking at only the positives of its situation.

"Here we've performed better and been more competitive with the McLarens than I expected," said Horner. "The advantage McLaren have at this circuit was always going to be a tall order for us.

"But the pace of our car here has been more than we expected coming into the event, so they were still very valuable points, and there's a long way to go.

"We know we've tracks coming up that will suit us. We have to take encouragement from our performance here this weekend. We tried something different on the strategy, but it wasn't enough to propel us ahead of the McLarens for the whole race, but it made for an interesting race.

"Hopefully we can run strongly in Valencia, which is going to be another challenge for us, but then we come back to tracks that should play more to our strengths. So there's absolutely everything to play for."

As well as its strategy of starting on the prime tyres in Canada not working, because the rubber did not last as long as it needed for the first stint, Red Bull's efforts were derailed by gearbox problems for both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

But despite reliability issues earlier in the season also having hurt the team, Horner said there were no regrets about the points lost at various points.

"Others didn't make the most of opportunities either, whether it be with wheels nuts or bungs left in their car," he said. "These things tend to equal themselves out.

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing at the end of 19 races, but where we are at the moment, it's still very tight. We're not even halfway through the season, and there is absolutely everything to play for.

"Valencia will play to the strengths of McLaren and Mercedes. We thought there would be more Mercedes-powered cars ahead of us, so we've actually managed to limit the damage.

"We've a couple of developments coming. I'm sure we can go there and build on the performance we've had here."