Daniel Ricciardo has said he is confident both he and Red Bul🐽l can take the steps necessary over the winter break to fight for the 2018 Formula 1 world title next🐽 year.

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

Despite 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 higher placing.

Nevertheless, he says🍨 he is confident winter break work will see Red Bull improve again to s﷽tart strongly in 2018.

“We'll see, this year we again had high hopes 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.

“But I think we've learnt a lot this year and I think we'll put the right worཧk in over the winter to start strong and then 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 wan😼ts 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 improv🐭ed 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 bee𒈔n pretty pleased with the year but I'm looking forward to extracting a bit more from myself.”