Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner has remained positive, despite seeing championship rivals McLaren take another maximum score from the Canadian GP, saying that his team is still right in the hunt for the 2010 championship.
The Red Bull team has had the fastest package throughout the opening stages of the season, but were well beaten by the McLaren team in Canada, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber only managing 4th and 5th respectively as McLaren took their second 1-2 in a row.
But Horner is not unduly concerned by the championship situation, despite the fact that McLaren have eased ahead of Red Bull in both championships.
He insists that the team's performance in Canada was still better than they had expected, with the long straights playing into McLaren's F-dcuted hands.
"Here we've performed better and been more competitive with the McLarens than I expected," Horner blithely assumed, "The advantage McLaren have at this circuit was always going to be a tall order for us.
"But the pace of our car here has been more than we expected coming into the event, so they were still very valuable points, and there's a long way to go."
He added that: "We know we've tracks coming up that will suit us. We have to take encouragement from our performance here this weekend. We tried something different on the strategy, but it wasn't enough to propel us ahead of the McLarens for the whole race, but it made for an interesting race.
"Hopefully we can run strongly in Valencia, which is going to be another challenge for us, but then we come back to tracks that should play more to our strengths. So there's absolutely everything to play for."
Red Bull's challenge in Canada was further compromised by another round of reliability issues. Mark Webber was forced to drop five places on the grid after he had a precautionary pre-race gearbox change, while Vettel also suffered gearbox issues in the race which hindered his ability to push.
But Horner insists that the team is no more prone to reliability issues as their rivals.
"Others didn't make the most of opportunities either, whether it be with wheels nuts or bungs left in their car," he shrugged, "These things tend to equal themselves out.
"Hindsight is a wonderful thing at the end of 19 races, but where we are at the moment, it's still very tight. We're not even halfway through the season, and there is absolutely everything to play for."
He added: "Valencia will play to the strengths of McLaren and Mercedes. We thought there would be more Mercedes-powered cars ahead of us, so we've actually managed to limit the damage.
"We've a couple of developments coming. I'm sure we can go there and build on the performance we've had here."
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