Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner has promised Adrian Newey’s new RB3 chassis will be a “significant step forward” for his team in 2007 after David Coulthard criticised RBR’s strength in depth at the weekend.

The Scot was furious at his failure to make it past the first qualifying session at Suzuka and questioned Red Bull’s ability to move forward after its drop in performance this year.

But Horner reckons the team’s lull in form is a deliberate blip induced by a shift in focus on to next year’s campaign.

“I think that you’ve obviously caught David just after he’s jumped out of the car at the end of a disappointing qualifying session for all of us,” he told ITV Sport’s Louise Goodman.

"David’s aware that the people we have in the team make up a very strong group. Under Adrian Newey’s leadership we have one of the strongest groups in Formula 1.

“We made a strategic decision earlier in the summer to turn off the development on the current car to focus on the development of RB3 – next year’s car – which will be a significant step forward for us.

“It was a very simple and straightforward decision to make to put all our eggs in one basket behind Adrian rather than splitting our resource.

“Inevitably there is a bit of short-term pain but we are expecting to see some longer term gain from it.

“I totally understand David’s frustration but he is a big part of our package for next year.”

Asked why Coulthard felt compelled to make remarks suggesting he was “nervous” for next year, Horner responded that DC’s reaction was a natural competitive response.

“He is still extremely motivated and unfortunately to come here at a circuit that he enjoys to qualify 17th… which really was a culmination of factors, one yes the car hasn’t progressed, two we are not on the best tyre here this weekend, but even so he knows what’s coming,” explained Horner.

“He knows what’s in the pipeline.

“We have got a lot of people who are working extremely hard in Milton Keynes that will produce a good car for us next year I have got no doubt of that.”

David WILL speak his mind now hes aloud to ... hes a racer through and through and his frustrations this last weekend was obvious...