Red Bull Formula 1 chief Christian Horner was pleased with the updates brought by the team to last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, claiming they were worth 0.4 seconds per lap.

The Barcelona race saw the majority of teams arrive with their first major update package of the season, with Red Bull aiming to cut the gap to front-runners Mercedes and Ferrari.

Although Max Verstappen was able to qualify within six-tenths of a second of the pole time for Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari streaked clear in the race, with Daniel Ricciardo finishing 75 seconds off winner Lewis Hamilton at the chequered flag.

Despite the gulf in the final classification, Horner was pleased with the team's overall performance and the impact of the updates, believing it has offered some direction.

"If you look at the weekend as a whole we have definitely addressed some of the issues, definitely made some progress with the car," Horner said.

"Daniel had a pretty lonely race, benefiting from [Valtteri] Bottas' retirement. Halfway through the race we turned the engine down to try and save engine life, it has to do quite a few events.

"The pace of the front running cars was pretty significant so we still have plenty to do. We feel that we have made some progress here this weekend, it has given us a very clear development direction. Hopefully we will capitalise on that in the coming races."

Horner said that the updates brought to Barcelona were targeted at slow and medium-speed corners, with the team estimating them to be worth four-tenths of a second per lap.

"The updates have been very much focused on the slow and medium speed, so that is where we definitely have pulled the car more together, are the comments from the drivers," Horner said.

"So definitely we have added performance here this weekend, it has given the guys a very clear direction on which to focus on.

"We feel we have added about .4 of a second to the car here this weekend, and it has given us a good direction which to further delve into and it has given us a pretty interesting data and information.

"We've got plenty going on because the rules are so immature in many respects, there's still lots of gains are being found.

"Mercedes have brought a massive update here, whilst the status quo in track position has remained the same we do feel we have got a bit closer this weekend and got a better understanding of a clear development direction."