Red Bull have no intention to alter its driver pairing for next season, according to team boss Christian Horner.
The Milton Keynes outfit have been troubled by performance and reliability woes this year but are on the back of strong performances recently, including their double podium finish at Hungary and Daniil Kvyat’s fourth place last time out in Spa despite Daniel Ricciardo retiring from the race when fighting for a podium spot.
This means they’ve racked up the most points after Mercedes in the previous three races preceding and succeeding the summer break, seeing them close the gap to Williams to 53 points in the Constructors Championship.
With Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat’s futures at the team being in doubt for different reasons, Horner has reassured many that their seats are all but safe when asked by AUTOSPORT about the Red Bull driver pairing for next year.
“I don’t see any reason to change it,” he said “We don’t have any rush to make a decision, both the drivers are on long-term contracts, but it’s a successful partnership and it’s working well.”
Red Bull have gone through a significant shakeup over the past 12 months, with Sebastian Vettel departing to Ferrari and Adrian Newey subsiding his involvement in F1 as well as junior drivers Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr. stepping into seats at Toro Rosso.
Horner accepts that every team has to change at some point to move on and has reiterated his satisfaction with the current crop of drivers Red Bull have.
“It is evolution. Any team or business needs to keep evolving. Nothing stays static forever,” added Horner.
“As for Adrian, he is still very much involved, just in a slightly different manner, and we’ve talent that is emerging”
“Like any business it has to continue to evolve, and we are going through that period of evolution.”
