Rob Smedley believes Red Bull has produced a “hugely impressive” car this season and that it will quickly challenge Mercedes if Renault can deliver more power.

I think it would be fairly pessimistic to say that this year has gone,” Smedley said. “If I just talk about the second quickest car – the Red Bull – I’ll be quite public in stating that’s a very, very impressive machine. If you look at the onboard cameras of that car it’s hugely impressive, so with upgrades from the Renault engine things could turn around very quickly.”

“The technology – certainly within the power unit – is still fairly immature and the gains we make per race on that side of things are certainly bigger than anything I’ve been used to for the past years. The aerodynamic structure of the car didn’t change dramatically but it did change enough that we’re still making big gains and looking at new concepts in all the various different areas of the car.”

“It’s only a matter of time until one of those turns up to have a decent gain and pushes us or other people forward. So no, it’s certainly not the end of the season or the end of the road by a long way.”

On the Mercedes, Smedley said he only perceives the car itself to be ‘decent’: “They have an excellent power unit package which we are very, very happy to have in the back of the Williams. The Mercedes is a very impressive package, and I think they’ve produced a decent car. I’m not sure with the same power in the back of all the cars which would be the best. Do they have a weakness? Well, clearly not, we’ve done five races and they’ve won five of them by a fairly hefty margin…”