Christian Horner believes Red Bull would require another ten days of pre-season testing to ensure they’ll be 100 per cent ready for the 2014 season.
The team has completed far less running than its main rivals, partly thanks to Renault’s unreliable V6 power unit and partly because of insufficient cooling.
Horner hinted that they won’t be ready for the first race and he couldn’t put a timeframe around when they would be.
“This is the tenth day of testing and we are about ten days behind I reckon,” said a rather bemused Horner.
“I’m very confident we’ll overcome the issues; the question is when and how quickly.
“We’re trying to go to Melbourne in as good a shape as we can, but we’ve probably covered only about a third of the mileage of some of the other teams.”
Whilst the team enjoyed its best day of testing on Friday with Daniel Ricciardo behind the wheel, Saturday’s running has been a disaster with Sebastian Vettel completing half a lap before the RB10 stopped.
