MOTORSPORT: Suddenly it's Red Ebullient Racing

Daniel Ricciardo won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix because of the woes that befell Mercedes and Ferrari, but Red Bull racing supremo Helmut Marko has predicted that Ricciardo's car will be capable of winning on merit soon – very soon.

Just a couple of weeks after Ricciardo's teammate Max Verstappen said this season with the Renault-powered RB13 had been "complete crap", Marko declared it should be a winner at the British GP on July 16 and the Hungarian GP a fortnight later.

But the man who is Red Bull energy drink tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz's personal emissary in F1, above Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner, did not hold out a lot of hope for the Austrian GP on Sunday week (July 9).

But then Baku, where carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo won last Sunday, and Montreal, where he was third a fortnight earlier, had not been expected to be good for the RB13 either.

Ricciardo does not appear as bullish as Marko on the likely sudden improvement in the car, although he has predicted that its early aerodynamic shortcomings will be "cured 100 per cent" by Hungary.

"We are on the right way to iron out all of our weak points," he said.

Teenager Verstappen is still down in the dumps after his four retirements from eight races this season, and being fined 25,000 Euros (A$37,000) for missing media interviews after the failure of his power unit in Azerbaijan.

But Marko is upbeat about the RB13, telling Michael Schmidt of Germany's Motor Presse group in Baku: "Since the start of the season we have found one second in the chassis."

Renault's latest engine mappings had allowed its 1.6-litre V6 hybrid to be driven closer to its potential, which had been worth another 0.2 seconds a lap in Azerbaijan with the use of a 'Monza wing' for Baku's high-speed long straight, rather than the Montreal-types other teams used.

"We are now on the level of the No.2 drivers of Mercedes [Valtteri Bottas] and Ferrari [Kimi Raikkonen]," Marko said.

"To [Sebastian] Vettel [Ferrari's No.1 and world championship leader] and [Lewis] Hamilton [Mercedes' No.1] we miss three-tenths still ... in qualifying a bit more.

"Once we have survived our home race in Austria we should be able to win on our own merits.

"I expect us to have a winning car in Silverstone [Britain] and Budapest [Hungary]."

Horner said Renault was "doing what they can" on its power unit that has lagged Mercedes and Ferrari since the start of the hybrid era in 2014.

"We desperately need more [engine] performance and reliability, but bit by bit that's coming," Horner said.

"Our target is to get into a genuinely competitive position. There will be some venues that come up that allow us to do that.

"Montreal and Azerbaijan are two of our absolute weakest yet we have been closer relatively than we thought we would have been."

The governing Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) will take another look at the controversial contact between Vettel and Hamilton next Monday and will announce any decision before the Austrian race. There is unlikely to be any further penalty on Vettel, who served a 10-second stop-go penalty in the Baku pits and had three more demerit points added to his licence, other than perhaps a public reprimand.

In the bigger picture of F1, a decision is due by the end of the year on the next-generation engine. The introduction date is scheduled to be 2021, but Schmidt reports that new owner Liberty Media and all four of the existing power unit manufacturers are agreeable to it being brought forward to 2020.

He said the base would continue to be 1.6-litre and six cylinders, but with two turbochargers, greater fuel flow and less electrical thrust – "in a maximum range of 150 to 200 horsepower".

Schmidt wrote that 2020 "would also be feasible for new entrants, such as Porsche – who are on the edge to dump Le Mans after 2018".

"Porsche told me that they intend to attend the next F1 engine meeting," he said.

The French manufacturer began adapting its struggling C3s to Norwegian Mikkelsen's requirements after he had done just one event with it.

He is Citroen's major hope in this weekend's Rally Poland, with the team's former No.1, Ulsterman Kris Meeke, "benched" after a series of crashes, most recently rolling out of the lead of the Italian round on the island of Sardinia.

That event was Mikkelsen's debut with Citroen and he finished eighth.

But he won in Poland last year for Volkswagen, which withdrew from the WRC after its Rally Oz finale. He was second in Poland the previous two years with VW.

Mikkelsen spearheaded a four-day Citroen test ahead of this weekend's round and the torque split between the front and rear of his C3 has been modified as a result.

"I defined a set-up that matches my driving style," Mikkelsen said.

His teammates this weekend, Irishman Craig Breen and Frenchman Stephane Lefebvre, don't have that new split because of delays in sourcing new parts.

Citroen is a distant fourth in the WRC's manufacturer standings after seven of the 13 rounds. Ford squad M-Sport leads Hyundai by 40 points, with Toyota another 51 points back in third.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton said: "We needed to take a step back to note that some of the risks we had taken during development of the C3 WRC were not paying off.

"Our car is unquestionably fast, but the window in which it works efficiently was proving too narrow.

"We have therefore begun making some major changes to our organisation, our methods and our principles. The first of these was the arrival of Andreas Mikkelsen, who encouraged us to explore some new ideas.

"After his first proper test session in the C3 WRC, we have introduced some upgrades that supplement the work done over the last few months.

"With a more versatile car, our drivers will be able to aim for the kind of results that match Citroen's high expectations," he said.

Estonian Ott Tanak, victor for M-Sport on Sardinia three weeks ago, is seeking this weekend to make up for the win he was denied by a puncture a year ago in Poland, where the rally is held in the Masurian lake district of the country's north.

Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, who won the past four WRC driver titles with VW, leads this year's championship for M-Sport by 18 points from Hyundai's Belgian team leader Thierry Neuville.

Hyundai's New Zealander Hayden Paddon claims Neuville can deny Ogier a fifth title.

"He is doing a great job. If you took Monte Carlo and Sweden [events Neuville was on course to win before problems] out of the equation, he'd be leading the championship.

"He won in Corsica and Argentina, we know Hyundai has a strong package ... so he has got the tools to do it."

The two-wheel-drive 3008DKR Maxi is 20cm wider than its predecessor, with the suspension track increased by 10cm on each side.

The upper and lower wishbones are new, as are the front and rear track rod ends and driveshafts.

Nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb will drive the Maxi in the July 7-22 Silk Way Rally, which has been tipped in some circles to overtake the Dakar as the world's premier marathon rally.

Loeb's French compatriots, Stephane 'Monsieur Dakar' Peterhansel and Cyril Depres, will drive the version that dominated this year's Dakar in South America.

Spaniard Carlos Sainz, Peugeot's other Dakar ace, said the Maxi's wider track "should allow us to push a bit more in the corners".

"The car feels more stable on fast and rough gravel roads," says Sainz, who won't compete in the Silk Way Rally although he has been involved in development of the new machine.

Echoing those sentiments, Loeb said: "I think the car is much more stable now that it is wider, and so it feels a bit different to drive.

"In the very narrow and technical parts that does mean it's more cumbersome of course, but in terms of stability and driving it's definitely a step forward.

"The car has less of a tendency to roll on its suspension now, so that gives you more confidence to attack and get it sideways.

"I'd say the strongest point is the off-road ability that it has. With its wide track and big wheels, it can go more or less anywhere.

"It's maybe not so agile on stage-type roads: that's more the territory of four-wheel drive cars. But the advantage of our car is the fact that it can tackle anything, especially the dunes."

Peugeot Sport director Bruno Famin said as his team prepares to mount its Dakar defence on the Silk Way: "There's only one thing more difficult than winning and that's carrying on winning, against very strong opposition."