Mateschitz: Anything less than F1 2010 title for RBR 'absurd'

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has made very clear that he expects nothing less than the F1 2010 title from his team - revealing that he is unhappy with the number of points Red Bull Racing has let slip by the wayside this year and stating that anything other than the crown 'would be absurd'.

Whilst between them Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber have claimed eight of the nine pole positions this season to-date - underlining the widely-held conviction that, until recently at least, the Adrian Newey-designed, Renault-powered RB6 has been the fastest thing on four wheels in the top flight - precious points have been lost through reliability woes, strategic errors and the calamitous collision between the pair in the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul that denied RBR a potential one-two.

Arriving at Silverstone for this weekend's British Grand Prix, only half of those poles have been successfully converted into race victories - two apiece for Vettel and Webber - and the German and the Australian sit respectively third and fourth in the drivers' title standings, when only last month they had shared the lead. McLaren-Mercedes similarly holds a 30-point advantage over its Milton Keynes-based rival in the constructors' chase - and Mateschitz insists now is the time to fight back.

"First of all, I am satisfied with the drivers and car all-round," the Austrian energy drinks magnate told the Salzburger Nachrichten. "What I am not satisfied with is the score, because on paper we should have a head-start instead of having a deficit. Now we have to make up lost ground.

"Expecting anything less [than the F1 2010 title] would be absurd. If someone with our potential cannot expect to win the world championship, then who [can]?"