Red Bull has moved to shut down talk that Daniel Ricciardo will be leaving the team next year for Ferrari, by activating their 2017 option on the Australian's contract.
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Ricciardo told formulaone.com that despite his recent frustration at pitstop and strategy woes he sees Red Bull as the team to push for a title next year.
"The deal with Red Bull was always long-term. The only thing that was keeping things a bit open was performance," he said.
Asked if this was "from your side or from their side"? Ricciardo added: "Ha, more from my side. But again, if they were doing really bad then I am sure if I had an approach for a winning car then it would have been OK. But at the moment, behind Mercedes, it is the next best place to be and I hope that in 2017 we can be as good as Mercedes."
On targeting a world championship in 2017, Ricciardo said: "Yep, that would be the perfect scenario."
Ricciardo told reporters at Baku, where the European Grand Prix will be held this weekend, that his contract arrangements had always been "discreet". He said Red Bull appears happy with his pairing with Dutchman Max Verstappen and that he anticipated that would be "pretty stable" going forward.
Red Bull is not expected to be a main challenger this weekend at Baku, with a two-kilometre straight on the old city street circuit favouring the teams with more power.
"Fortunately we do have the engine update – otherwise it would be pretty dull," Ricciardo said on formulaone.com. "But yes, I would see the Mercedes in the front. My guess is also that Williams and Force India will do well.
"We are getting closer, yes, but I don't think that we are even yet. If we look back, we saw that Nico Rosberg found it quite difficult to pass Max [Verstappen] in Montreal, but I still believe they are able to run more downforce than us. And even if both cars were to run on the same downforce level I think that Mercedes would have a speed advantage. But we are closing in."
