Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner has said that the stability in the regulations gives his team a real opportunity to fight their rivals in 2020.

The Milton Keynes-based team has so far failed to mount a serious title challenge in the hybrid era, but they made improvements during the course of 2019, ending the season as the second fastest team.

And with the regulations in 2020 remaining the same as last year, Horner believes that Red Bull stand a better chance of fighting Mercedes and Ferrari.

“We’ve got stability in the regulations for the first time in five or six years, and that gives us a real opportunity to take the fight to our rivals.” commented Horner.

“All the lessons we learned last year have been carried over from RB15 to RB16.”

In addition to the stable regulations, Red Bull are also going into 2020 with continuity from both an engine and driver perspective.

After a difficult few seasons with Renault, Red Bull switched to Honda power for 2020, and while there was a lot of apprehension about the competitiveness of the Japanese engine, given their struggles with McLaren, Red Bull were able to secure three victories during the course of the year courtesy of Max Verstappen.

They will also retain the same drivers for 2020 – the first time they have started the season with the same pairing as they ended the season before since 2018 – with Alex Albon securing a seat with the team in 2020 after impressing since swapping places with Pierre Gasly mid-way through last season.

And, with the team avoiding any major changes for this season, Horner believes it will allow Red Bull to maintain momentum.

“We also have stability in the Team – including our drivers and technical staff,” Horner added.

“And alongside the momentum we built over the second half of last year we’re in a very good place to mount a strong challenge this year.”

Verstappen also agreed with his boss’ comments, stating that although they will need to wait and see what happens at the pre-season tests in Barcelona, everybody in the team is “incredibly motivated” to challenge Mercedes.

“We really want to mount a challenge to [defending champions] Mercedes, and I think we can do that,” said the eight-time Grand Prix winner..

“We have to see what happens in winter testing but the key thing is that everybody in the Team is fired up and everybody is incredibly motivated.

“I’m looking forward to it, because I know that when everything is put together that, as a team, in pressure situations we excel compared to other teams.

“When we get that fight and we are really close then I’m pretty sure we can win.”