Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said on Friday he was primed for a "development race" between Formula One's top teams ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, singling out McLaren's 2025 challenger as "the car to beat".
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The Milton Keynes-based outfit dominated the sport over the first two years after the most recent regulations change in 2022 - which saw a return to ground-effect cars - as other teams struggled to get to grips with generating downforce by passing air underneath their cars instead of through wings on top of them.
But the pack has tightened up significantly since then, with McLaren overcoming a 115-point deficit to Red Bull after the first six races of 2024 and winning the constructors' championship.
The team in papaya has already established itself as the title favourite for 2025.
"It's of course now a development race between now and Abu Dhabi in December," Horner told a news conference as he sat next to McLaren team boss Zak Brown. "It's going to be a nine-month marathon of a season."
"From what we saw in Melbourne, if the racing is like that all the way through, it could be a bumper year," he added.
McLaren's Lando Norris won last week's Australian Grand Prix ahead of Red Bull's reigning world champion, Max Verstappen, who told reporters on Thursday he considered McLaren to be "quite far ahead," after finishing around nine tenths of a second behind the 25-year-old British driver in the first race of the season.
"Inevitably, it depends how the championship plays out, but you've got to keep pushing," Horner said, when asked whether Red Bull would need to keep developing their car through to the last race in Abu Dhabi to win the constructors' crown in 2025.
"In this business, if you're standing still, you're going backwards," he added.
The rules reset presents a dilemma for the teams, who are also constrained by a cost cap: Commit resources to developing this year's car to try and win in 2025 or focus on next year, when new aerodynamics and engine specifications could reshuffle the pecking order.
From 2026, the cars will be smaller, 30kg lighter, feature active aerodynamics and a manual override system, and have simpler hybrid power units with an even split between internal combustion and electric.
"It's one race, in tricky conditions, so let's see how things play out over the next few races," McLaren's Brown said, referring to Melbourne's rain-struck race last weekend. "I don't think we've seen the final line-up yet."