Vettel: Time for Red Bull to respond

The German, who is the only driver other than Jenson Button to have won a race this year, believes himself and his Milton Keynes-based outfit need to banish the mistakes that have left them drifting away from their rivals in the title standings.

Speaking ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix, Vettel conceded that Red Bull Racing had to start closing down the 28-point deficit that has opened up between himself and Jenson Button.

"I think so, yes," said Vettel when asked if the time had come for the team to react. "I know we have quite a big gap to the cars in front, and especially Jenson, if you look at the championship board. But we have to focus on ourselves.

"We have done a couple of mistakes in the last races and maybe put our money on the wrong strategy. But we try our best to do everything right here. I think we have a very competitive car and we have some new bits which might not have helped us so much in Monaco but should help us here - and a car that generally likes fast corners as you have in Istanbul."

Red Bull Racing is expected to provide Brawn's main challenge in Istanbul, with the RB5's strengths, plus its new double-decker diffuser, more likely to come to the fore on the track's high-speed turns than it did at Monaco.

"In Monaco it was very difficult to read if it was an improvement or not," said Vettel about the new diffuser. "Everything we could read from the data was positive, and it should help us here as we have a few more fast corners and not so much stop-go like there was in Monaco. So we will see.

"I think our car will be feeling well on this circuit. But we have the whole weekend in front of us so we have to prove that."

He added: "We are not afraid of anyone. Looking at the championship and looking at the results, Brawn is the team said to be favourite - for here as well. But we are here to do our best and our target is to win, so we try to beat them."