Horner: No team orders at Red Bull

Christian Horner says Red Bull will not impose team orders to keep Daniel Ricciardo in the title frame.

Ricciardo's back-to-back victories in Hungary and Spa had seen him close the gap to championship leader Nico Rosberg to 64 points, and with the two Mercedes' drivers feuding and 50 points available in Abu Dhabi, Ricciardo was paying lip service to the idea of a title challenge.

While Ricciardo said he would wait until after the Italian Grand Prix to see if he was still in touch enough to warrant speaking to the team about getting Vettel's help, the race at Monza saw the two Red Bull drivers scrap over fifth place before Ricciardo came out on top.

The result couple with a Mercedes one-two - saw Ricciardo fall 72 points behind Rosberg, and team principal Horner said his chances are too slim for the team to think about imposing team orders.

"We let the drivers race," Horner said. "We trusted them, they raced hard and wheel-to-wheel, extremely fairly. The points difference between Daniel and the two Mercedes is enormous, so it doesn't make sense for us to interfere with the two drivers racing. So it's down to what they do on track and that's how they raced [in Monza]."

And Horner says he can foresee more occasions where the two Red Bull drivers are racing closely after seeing a competitive Vettel for the majority of the weekend at Monza.

"Obviously it's been a difficult year for Seb but that's not been his own making. Daniel has driven incredibly well and I think all credit should be given to Daniel for how he's driven this year. So it's going to be a fascinating final third of the year to see how it pans out.

"Certainly Sebastian seemed reasonably happy with the car in qualifying and in the early stages of the race. It wasn't a lack of pace [in Italy], it was just how their different strategies worked out."