Red Bull aiming to beat BMW this year

Red Bull Racing's RB3 car, designed by Adrian Newey, has failed to match early expectations and the team are yet to score a point, with a tenth place finish as their best result so far.

In contrast, BMW Sauber have started the season strongly and are currently in third place in the standings behind McLaren and Ferrari.

Red Bull have been hard at work to try and solve their problems, and both Mark Webber and David Coulthard showed progress last time out in Bahrain before being hit by reliability issues.

Mateschitz reckons his team are now in front of world champions Renault, and he is adamant they have enough potential to beat BMW later on.

"We tackled one problem after the other," Mateschitz told Motorsport Aktuell. "And we have made progress. David Coulthard stormed through the Bahrain field from 21st position on the grid to seventh place. Webber was again in the top ten in qualifying.

"The Red Bull Racing cars were lying seventh and eighth in the Bahrain race, so we have overtaken Renault, Williams and Toyota. But it would be foolish to talk about Ferrari or McLaren-Mercedes as possible opponents in the first proper year.

"BMW Sauber has made a solid step ahead, but I would say that they have to be our goal for this year. But as I stated one year ago: the real goal is to finish fifth in the constructors' championship this year.

"And according to the latest progress in Barcelona and a further evolution step in Canada I would say that this is entirely possible. Also do not forget that so far we were the only team not to use a seamless shift gearbox.

"To cut a long story short: we still are behind our schedule, because we have lost six weeks due to the problem I have explained.

"But we believe that our car has more potential than other cars which are further in development. So we should be capable of not only matching BMW Sauber but also of staying in front of the other teams."

Mateschitz reckons part of Red Bull's problems have been related to their new wind tunnel, which was not yet calibrated when Newey began working with it.

"Bear in mind that our car is a completely new construction," he added. "There is not a single screw taken over from last years model. That of course creates a certain amount of risk, even more so since the car is designed boldly and avant garde.

"Now, unfortunately at the same time we have built our wind tunnel which was not calibrated yet. So Adrian Newey found himself confronted with the question if he should trust his gut feeling or the results from the new tunnel. He decided to go for the tunnel.

"During the first tests in December and January then, it became apparent that those results from the tunnel were not to be converted to the race track. In other words: we have developed in the wrong direction a bit."