Daniel Ricciardo has said he is confident both he and Red Bull can take the steps necessary over the winter break to fight for the 2018 Form༒ula 1 world title next year.

Ricciardo is currently fourth in driver standing♊s - assuming he holds off Kimi Raikkonen (only seven points behind) then it will be a place back from his finish in third last year - and previously in 2014.

Despi🦂te initial hopes the Red Bull car would be strong this year, reliability and a slow start to the season have dogged the team and a race win in Baku has not pushed him into contention for a high☂er placing.

Neverth𓆏eless, he says he is confident winter break work will see Red Bull improve again to start strongly ♎in 2018.

“We'll see, this year we again had high hop🃏es for that, next year again we hope to close the gap,” Ricciardo said. “Is it enough to fight for a title? I think we can certainly get close but we’ll see. I don't want to predict anything too early.

“Bu🥃t I think we've learnt a lot this year and I think we'll put the right work in over the winter to start strong and thꦓen that will be exciting.”

Ricciardo leads Red Bull team-mate Verstappen, who has been particularly hit by Renault reliability problems, by 42🔯 points and said overall his season had been good but wants key changes to be made in preparation for 2018.

“Yes, I think on a personal level just make sure I fill in the blanks,” he said. “I think my season's been good, there's been some great races but obviously I would love 🌠all 20 to be great and not all 20 have been. I’ll assess the year, obviously once it's all settled and then just try and understand what I could have improved and make those improvements.

“I✨'m sure there's on-track stuff but also off-track. And then just give next year a proper crack. I've been pretty pleased with the year but I'm looking forward to extracting a bit more from myself.”