Horner: RBR would have won normal GP

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber finished a distant sixth and eighth respectively in the Shanghai race, despite having started from the front row of the grid.

Red Bull struggled in the tricky conditions, with rain hitting the circuit several times during the race.

Horner believes, however, that had it been dry, his drivers would have emerged on top quite easily.

"A far from straightforward race in very tricky conditions, and sixth and eighth is still very valuable points," Horner told AUTOSPORT.

"It is just obviously frustrating, that with a straightforward dry race today I don't think the opposition would have seen us."

Despite Red Bull having missed several opportunities in the first four races of the season, Horner insists there are lots of reasons to be positive.

"We know we have a fast car," he said. "I think in conditions like in China it is not just about strategy, there is a degree of luck involved. And when you start seventh and eighth you have less to lose and more to gain.

"We head back to Europe have gone to four very different venues, had had two 1-2 starts and one 1-3 start.

"So I think there is an awful lot of positives. As you saw with Ferrari here, they didn't score big points either. So I think it is innate to the championship that there will be swings and roundabouts to it."

And he reckons Red Bull is operationally stronger than last season, despite having won just one race out of a possible four so far.

"Absolutely. There is no question about that. Here was not anything to do with strategy or operationally. I think the communication between the engineers and the cars and the drivers - at the end of the day they made all the same calls as Lewis [Hamilton] did, so I don't think there are any issues there whatsoever."