Red Bull: We can take it to Ferrari in F1 2016

Daniel Ricciardo ran as high as second during the Australian Grand Prix before finishing fourth, just under 15 seconds behind third-placed Sebastian Vettel.

"Ferrari isn't a huge amount ahead so if we can keep our heads down and keep pushing then it's not infeasible that in the second half of the year that we can be taking it to them a bit," said Horner.

"Fundamentally the chassis is working very well and the degradation on the tyres has been very good.

"Our stint lengths seemed as long as the best and we were competitive.

"When Ricciardo was in clear air on the same tyre he was doing the same laptimes as Seb [Vettel].

"So there are some really encouraging facts.

"We got the strategy right and good pitstops so it was a solid performance."

Horner, whose team finished fourth in the constructors' championship last year, was encouraged by how Red Bull started its campaign.

"At this track we certainly had the third fastest car, particularly in the race and that is encouraging," he said.

"It's not where we want to be, we want to obviously focus on moving forward.

"It's encouraging that the characteristics of the car have continued from last year and evolved, and we've got a very good product to work with."

Red Bull is expecting to make gains when Renault introduces a planned upgrade later in the season.