Despite Max Verstappen's Austrian GP victory, Red Bull-Honda have plenty of work to close the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari

In June last year Red Bull announced that they would end a 12-year long partnership with Renault. It was a combination that won consecutive driver and team championship doubles, with a total of 59 victories and 160 podium finishes. But those dominant days have long passed.

Red Bull were increasingly unhappy with Renault's performance - and arguably downright angry by the end of last season - compared to Mercedes and Ferrari.

One outburst at the Hungarian Grand Prix from Max Verstappen summed up their feelings perfectly. "I don't care if this f------engine blows up. What a f------ joke. All the f------ time. This is s---, honestly."

Red Bull would replace Renault with Honda, in effect becoming their works team. It looked like a bold move. The hope was that Honda power would help them close the gap to to the top two teams, Mercedes and Ferrari.

At that point, Honda were rebuilding their reputation. They had returned to the sport in 2015, a year after the start of the V6 turbo-hybrid era. They endured three chastening seasons with McLaren, whose criticisms were often public and stinging. What the British team had thought would be a rekindling of old glories turned sour quickly.

McLaren ended their contract with Honda early, switching to customer Renault engines for 2018. Honda, wanting to stay in F1, provided engines to Red Bull's junior team, Toro Rosso.

The decision was not one out of desperation, as frustrated as they were with the Renault, but grounded in reason. Early results for Toro Rosso were encouraging, as Pierre Gasly took a superb fourth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix. They would be careful not to make the mistakes that McLaren made with Honda.

Helmut Marko, head of the team's young driver program, targeted five wins in 2019. Christian Horner was a little more realistic. "It is all about evolution. Our goal this year has been all about closing the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari," he said back in April.

After a solid start to 2019, Max Verstappen's superb Austrian Grand Prix win marks an important moment for Honda and Red Bull. It was their first grand prix victory as an engine supplier since August 2006.

It might be tempting to get carried away and look at their first victory as a watershed moment but the bigger picture is more complicated. The bottom line after the first nine rounds of the 2019 season is that of a team that has moved backwards rather than forwards.

One of the biggest targets this year was to improve qualifying performance, where they felt they lacked performance compared to Mercedes and Ferrari, whose "party modes" gave them extra grunt when they needed it.

At six of nine grands prix this season, Red Bull's raw pace has been quicker than last year, directly compared. In three races - Bahrain, China and Canada - their quickest lap times of a weekend were slower than in 2018.  Bahrain and China were in the first three races of the season and a bedding in period, though, so that is no great worry.

They are not racing themselves from 2018 but the rest of the field in 2019. Relative to the overall quickest time of a weekend (rated at 100.000 per cent) Red Bull have so far lagged behind their 2018 showing.

Until Austria they had only moved closer to the leaders at the Chinese Grand Prix. In each around they have been the third fastest team but the drop-off to the midfield behind is roughly the same as the gap between themselves and the leaders. Some of that is down to Mercedes improved performance in 2019 but the aim was to reduce this deficit, so it's hardly irrelevant.

The Austrian Grand Prix saw the the biggest improvement in raw pace. In 2018, their quickest lap time was 0.710 seconds behind the quickest lap in qualifying. This year that closed to 0.436 seconds.

That is encouraging but you have to look at the trends rather than one race in isolation. Over the first nine races last year - all held at the same tracks - their raw pace rating was 100.628 per cent. Or 0.628 per cent off the absolute pace on average. This year that has risen to 100.915 after the same nine grands prix.

The trend for Mercedes and Ferrari to use their power unit's "hotlap" mode was where the Renault engine supposedly fell behind.  Has there been any improvement here? Not really.

In the first nine rounds of 2018 - again, on the same circuits - their average improvement (calculated by the difference between their quickest lap in each session) was 0.510 seconds from Q2 to Q3, removing two outliers at either end. The pole sitter's improvement was 0.775 seconds. In 2019 both figures are down.

This year Red Bull improved an average of 0.314 seconds between these sessions, compared to 0.597 seconds for the pole man. So, whatever engine settings are engaged in Q3 appear to be less effective. But Red Bull have not made any ground. In fact, the difference has remained roughly the same. Of course, this metric gives only a rough measure but it shows that qualifying pace is still an issue and has not improved. We know that there is work to come on this from Honda - and the Japanese firm has also worked hard to introduce two engine upgrades by mid-June - but Mercedes and Ferrari still sit miles ahead.

The good news is that if they were still using Renault power units they would likely be worse off.  Taking the Q2-Q3 times from the top-ranked Renault-powered car (either a Renault or a McLaren) and again removing the outliers, their average improvement is just 0.204 seconds. That makes at least one reason to be cheerful, but beating Renault here would have been the minimum. With 12 races left this season their deficit in qualifying will have to improve for it to have been a good year, regardless of race pace. That happening would not be a massive surprise but the important factor is by how much.

Looking purely at results they are also a little further behind. At this point last year they had 189 points and two victories, compared to 169 points and one win this year. But there are mitigating factors there and a direct comparison is difficult. Firstly Mercedes have taken a step up and opportunities at the front have been fewer.

Pierre Gasly has been battling in the midfield rather than at the front, fifth his best finish in nine races. Fortunately there is no chance of Gasly's poor form costing them as McLaren, fourth in the standings, are not a realistic threat. But if they want to progress they cannot carry an underperforming driver for too long, especially into 2020.

Verstappen though, in the form of his life, has finished above both Ferraris in three races and above one of them in four, in races in which both cars took the chequered flag. Horner recently said he was driving better than anyone. In only one round has he been beaten by both. Then again, that represents a fairly steady position to last year. But it shows any drop off in overall performance has been fairly small, if any.

Although on current form they are not closing the gap, it has been a solid, respectable and reliable start for Red Bull-Honda. There should be improvement to come as the season and years progress. Honda's relationship has already surpassed the disastrous three-year one it had with McLaren, though that is a depressingly low bar.

The gap to the front was never going to close overnight. But a fair measure will be to see if it has closed at all by the end of the 2019 season. Then the biggest tests will come at the start of 2020 and the start of 2021. After four seasons scrapping for a handful of wins, Red Bull are unlikely to quietly settle for staying third best for much longer. And solid progression towards the front of the grid is needed before the end of the season.