Christian Horner: Well, it’s part of an ongoing process throughout the season, but yes, Barcelona was a reasonably big package. The early indications are reasonably positive - but as with all new things they have to bed in before you really can make a final verdict. In Barcelona we were in the tuning process by changing set-ups to see what works best. And it worked well enough for a podium finish for Daniel (Ricciardo). And my guess is that also Max (Verstappen) would have had a good race, as he was very inspired from his memory of last year.

Q: Christian, Spain was the first big car upgrade of the year for Red Bull Racing. It was on the chassis side, so it was the team’s contribution. On the engine side, Renault are due to deliver in the summer. Were you happy with your contribution?

Much hype surrounded the arrival of Red Bull’s updated car in Spain last weekend. It did put them back on the podium - and closed the gap to the frontrunners. But the chances of challenging Mercedes and Ferrari for victories anytime soon still looked slim. Does team principal Christian Horner agree? We sat down for an exclusive chat about engine upgrades, Adrian Newey, driver contracts and more…

He has been working very hard on this car - and has an incredibly talented crew around him

Q: Were you surprised that the package worked so well out of the box last weekend?

CH: Usually if you bring something bigger it hardly ever happens that you put it on the car and it immediately works. Everything has to work in conjunction and harmony with all the other parts. But we can already see that we were closer again. Only a couple of tenths behind Ferrari and within something of sixth-tenths to benchmark Mercedes. And the feeling is clearly that there is more potential to come and that we see it opens up more avenues that we can exploit in the races to come.

Q: So far you’ve worked your way down from 1.8 seconds behind in Australia, to 1.2s behind in China, to eight-tenths in Bahrain…

CH: …ha, but it went up again to 1.2 seconds in Russia because of the nature of the track. But yes, six-tenths in Barcelona is a basis that we can work on.

Q: So you are waiting for the Renault engine upgrade. The Renault works team are expecting it for Azerbaijan. What about Red Bull Racing?

CH: It seems to be work in progress. They said it will be the third engine and it depends on the introduction of that engine. Sure, we are keen to have it as soon as possible. We hope it will be Montreal. We are going to church every week to pray that it will happen as soon as possible. (Laughs)

Q: Does it make sense to do a two-step update: first the chassis and then a couple of races later the engine? How do you know that your part works if the engine is still somewhat up in the air?

CH: Well, we can only focus on us. And we are doing the best that we can with the resources that we have. I have no doubt that the second half of the season will be much stronger for us than the first half.

Q: Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko said that very likely the season is already over for you. Is that so?

CH: Ha, that is probably his Austrian way of seeing things. The glass always seems to be half empty. (Laughs) Helmut has a very immediate reaction to things - good or bad. Perhaps I am a bit more hopeful. I truly believe that the second half will turn the table in our favour.

Q: Right now you are fighting for P3…

CH: We are a bit in no-man’s land. We are trying to start playing with the big boys! And if we are going to manage that, probably one of our drivers could dictate what happens in the drivers’ championship. Because if you have five or six drivers fighting for a win on a Grand Prix weekend, that becomes a somewhat different dynamic.

Q: You say that you want to start ‘playing with the big boys’. Not too long ago you were the ‘big boys’…

CH: Yes, that’s true. But we have demonstrated also last season that we can at least play phoenix! Exactly one year ago we had the same amount of points when we arrived in Barcelona and we managed to catch and beat Ferrari. Nobody would have expected that at the very beginning of 2016. So things can change quickly. And one of the key factors for us going strong last year was the engine upgrade in Monaco.