Verstappen downplays Red Bull's favourite tag

The Dutchman confirmed on Thursday that Red Bull would run an updated Renault power unit at Singapore, which is expected to deliver a small performance lift.

But although many regard the Singapore track as the perfect venue for Red Bull to turn the tables on championship leaders Mercedes, Verstappen is more cautious about where things stand.

“Hopefully the upgrade will be very positive, but we will have to wait and see,” he explained. “I’m just very happy to be here, we know that we have a chance here to score some good points.”

The potential of Mercedes remains unclear ahead of the weekend as the Brackley-based team is returning to the scene of its most difficult race of 2015.

For although the outfit is confident it has got to the bottom of the tyre woes that hurt it 12 months ago, it cannot be certain of progress until its car hits the track.

Verstappen wants to wait until Friday practice before making any kind of prediction about where Red Bull stacks up, despite the mounting expectations on his outfit.

“We just focus on our own thing, people can write what they want,” he said. “We have a good chance.

“If you look at last year we improved a lot from our side. Wait and see. It’s difficult for me to say we’ll be the number one team because we haven’t driven. We know more about how good we are tomorrow.

“At the moment we have good hopes that we can be very competitive, but how well we don’t know yet. Hopefully we are very competitive, like for example in Monaco.”

It is understood that both Red Bull drivers will use the upgraded Renault powerunit in Singapore, with the Renault works team sticking with the older specification for now due to their engine duty cycle.