Red Bull has categorically denied that it is the team to beat in Formula 1 following suggestions of an energy deployment advantage surfacing in Bahrain.
Red Bull hit the ground running during the first pre-season test in Bahrain, running reliably and consistently on the first day.
But the reliability of RB22 was not the only aspect of the new car being questioned, as rivals and media noticed how well the car exited corners.
The team can seemingly deploy its battery long before its rivals, with Toto Wolff claiming the team could enjoy a an advantage of up to a second in this area.
But Technical Director Pierre Wache denied this, as the spotlight at Bahrain shifted from Mercedes to the Milton Keynes marque.
“It’s difficult to say,” he said to the media, including Motorsport Week, on where Red Bull stood in the competitive order.
Red Bull not out in front?
Wache firmly denied Red Bull led the field after Bahrain, stating that testing times are impossible to decipher given the different programmes being run by the teams.
“We are not the benchmark, for sure,” he said.
“We see clearly the top three teams, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren are in front of us, it looks like, from what our analysis is, and we are behind.But there is where we think we are at the moment.
“It’s difficult to say about the others, because the run time of everybody, the level of fuel they run, the level of power they run, it’s difficult to say, but it’s currently our analysis that it could be wrong.
“We don’t spend too much time on that, we try to focus on how to improve our work.How happy are you with your own work? I’m never happy with my own work. Clearly we have some improvement to do, some challenges around this type of regulation, with the level of oil that is quite low, the level of downforce very low, and the challenge to manage the traction at a low speed is very high, and that is one of the key.”
READ MORE: Max Verstappen issues damning ‘like Formula E on steroids’ assessment of new F1 cars
Discussion about this post