Red Bull may have completed more laps on day one in Bahrain than they did on any single day during the Jerez test, but they were still left disappointed as Sebastian Vettel’s running was curbed once again by reliability troubles.
The RB10 was garage-bound for the morning session after what the team described as a “lengthy build process”. Vettel did however make it out in the afternoon to complete 14 laps in total. However problems persisted and the German admitted they weren’t happy with their progress so far.
“Obviously we’re not happy with where we are now and we have a long way ahead of us,” he said after. “The first gut feeling from the car is OK, but we need more running.
“We sorted out the issues from Jerez and we were able to do some laps today. However, very often you fix one problem and another pops up, which is what happened. That’s testing. We all knew this year was a massive challenge and we knew it would be difficult.
“We obviously didn’t want this, but it is what it is and we are working flat out to solve the problems.”
Race engineering co-ordinator Andy Damerum was slightly more upbeat, admitting they’d resolved many of the problems which plagued their running in Jerez, but yet more issues were discovered which they will now work on overnight to fix.
“It’s been a very long two weeks for everyone back at the factory and I have to say that while it might not appear so on the surface there has been a big improvement since Jerez,” he explained.
“We are obviously playing catch-up and for us this was very much like a first test, so we were sending the car out to do one lap, then two and trying to build from there. In that regard the laps completed were good. However, we were sidelined by a mechanical gremlin but one unrelated to the issues in Jerez.
“That’s the way of testing. All these problems have to be ironed out and only reveal themselves as you progress. We’ll look at solving that issue now and we’re itching to get out on track again tomorrow.”
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