Red Bull hail "definitive step" after closing on Mercedes with F1 updates

Laurent Mekies believes Red Bull made a "definitive step" with its latest upgrades, as Max Verstappen moved closer to a podium return in the Miami Grand Prix. 

Red Bull dropped out of the battle for race wins at the start of the season, with Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari all making stronger starts to the new rules era than the Milton Keynes-based team.

But with most teams bringing rafts of upgrades to Miami, Red Bull found itself back in contention for silverware, with Verstappen recovering from a lap-one spin to score solid points for a fifth-place finish, this after qualifying second to championship leader Kimi Antonelli on Saturday.

"There is a definitive step forward," said team principal Mekies. 

"We left Japan 1.2 seconds away from pole, China 1.0 seconds away from pole; [the] competition was not going to wait for us with their updates. So everybody has updated the car, but certainly we knew that on top of the development race, we had to solve some of our issues, and we knew there was lap time in it. 

"So to see us this weekend qualifying six tenths away from pole on Friday and less than two tenths away from pole on Saturday is a big indication of the size of the progress. Compared to where we were, it's something much better than anything we have been able to show this year." 

However, Red Bull's joy will be tempered by the knowledge that pace-setters Mercedes did not bring its major package to Miami, and elected instead to bring the updates to the next race in Canada. While it is likely that Red Bull will bring further upgrades for the second North American outing, it is almost certain that this package will be far smaller in scale than Mercedes' list.

Assessing the Miami progress, Mekies added: "[Our pace was] not strong enough for P1 and P2, but perhaps able to put us in a fight between P3, P4 and P5. So again, some things that we had not shown so far this season, and it's credit to back Milton Keynes for such an important step forward. 

"Don't get me wrong, we have not cracked everything we wanted to, so us against us, there is more we want to extract out of our package, and then we are conscious that the development race will be on and competition will bring stuff next race."