(Keen to see my name in lights, I recently submitted an article to The Red Bull Reporter website in an attempt to become a scribe at this year’s British Grand Prix.

The task was simple: write a 300-500 word mid-season review of the F1 season thus far.

Except, you soon realise that the 500 word limit doesn’t give much room for manoeuvre, and well, I hope they weren’t looking for a particularly pro-Red Bull piece.

Nevermind. Rather than see it become lost in a sea of submissions, I’m just going to press CTRL+C, followed by CTRL+V and plonk it on here…)

It looked like normal service had been resumed at the season opener in Bahrain, with new Prancing Horseman Fernando Alonso taking first blood, as a spark plug hobbled Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull.

But while the old guard of Ferrari and McLaren occupied the three steps of the podium at Sakhir, it has been Red Bull who has managed to fizz their way up the field, leaving the other teams to play catch up.

With some heavyweight technical folk and a well-balanced line-up, the Milton Keynes-based squad has once again produced a rocket ship of car that has managed to claim pole position in seven of the eight races so far this season.

Race results tell a different story however. With a spate of technical issues hindering performance early on in the year and a well documented coming together in Turkey throwing 28 points down the drain. You have to wonder if, come the end of the season, Red Bull won’t be ruing these costly issues when it comes to either championship.

As it stands, McLaren heads both the drivers’ and constructors’ tables after having much the momentum in recent weeks. With the aid of their potent Mercedes engine and much imitated f-duct facility, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have always been in the mix, ready to haul in the points when those around them are falling to pieces.

Both have driven brilliantly all season and have not put a single foot wrong on a Sunday afternoon. With two wins apiece and no signs of an intra team rivalry about to split the garage in two, the Woking crew has recently come knocking on Red Bull’s door, and should be poised to launch an all-out offensive at the British Grand Prix.

But what of Ferrari? They started in the best way possible scoring a 1-2, but then appeared to quickly go off the boil, much like the four Bridgestones bolted on either corner of the F10, which has struggled to generate sufficient heat in them this year.

But sleeping dogs don’t lie for too long. Ferrari has been working tirelessly, in an attempt to close the gap to Red Bull and they took a step closer this weekend at Valenica with the introduction of the exhaust-blown diffuser.

Figures being bandied about suggest that this feature provides a massive 0.6s-0.7s advantage, and as such, everyone is busy preparing to introduce their own versions (with Renault, Mercedes, Williams and McLaren to follow on at Silverstone).

The race is on to implement what has been an intrinsic part of the season’s fastest car, the Red Bull RB6. Obviously Red Bull will continue to develop hard, but is there 0.6s worth of development left in the design? Might Red Bull not already have blown its chances of taking the title, only scoring four wins from eight races?

With three teams still in contention of producing the next world champion, F1 is in an exciting state at the moment and finely poised to produce a cracking finale.

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