GETTY Haas driver Romain Grosjean has backed McLaren to rival Red Bull in 2018

The British constructors are one of the sport’s most recognisable teams and are it's second oldest active outfit after Ferrari. They’ve not been on top since 2008 though, when Lewis Hamilton edged out Felipe Massa to secure glory at the final race of the season. The subsequent nine titles have been split between pit-lane rivals Mercedes (four), Red Bull (four) and Brawn. However, Grosjean has backed McLaren, who finished ninth in the constructors standings this time around, to better use their resources to their advantage when discussing his expectations for the 2018 F1 campaign.

F1 2018 driver line-up Tue, January 16, 2018 Express Sport brings you the full F1 2018 driver line-up Play slideshow Getty Images 1 of 10 Mercedes – Lewis Hamilton (44) and Valtteri Bottas (77)

"Some teams are going to maybe have a less powerful power unit so one goes up one goes down," he said. "I think the best [approach] is to do our own work; we know where to improve, there's a few areas where we really need to focus on to get better. "[We need to be] making sure the updates – when they're coming – are working and they have been well validated before. "[That would mean] we're not losing three months of time to bring something that actually doesn't bring what it's supposed to do, so that's an area, just an example. "McLaren is going to be super strong next year and they have huge resources, probably the biggest factory in Formula 1.

GETTY Former F1 champion Fernando Alonso will drive for McLaren once again in 2018