The team also amusingly repsonded to rumours of Sebastian Vettel throwing a
“hissy fit” over the new car in Jerez, with a post by the ‘Red Bull spy’ on
their website.
The
‘spy’ joked: “I suppose it could be true. Maybe four World
Championships really have turned him into a screaming primadonna. Perhaps
what really happened is Seb leapt out of the car and started foaming at the
mouth. He made a very rude gesture in the direction of Adrian, snarled at
Rocky, kicked Ole in the spanners and then stormed out of the garage,
saddled his unicorn and rode back to Switzerland.”
One driver who is not afraid to admit he has cast his eye over the competition
is Jenson Button, whose running was hampered slightly by a gearbox problem,
as he hailed Red Bull’s pace.
“It’s absolute rubbish when drivers say we’re concentrating on ourselves”,
Button said. “It’s utter crap. We all know that, and I’ve had some of them
as my team-mates.
“I think it’s important to do your own programs but you look at the times and
you see what people are doing on a long run. It’s stupid not to.”
On the reigning champions, the 34-year-old said: “You have to always worry
about Red Bull. If they can put a few laps together you can see their pace.
It looks like it should work, even if you’re not looking from an aerodynamic
point of view.
“When they do get reliability, if they do, they’ll be very competitive.”
Red Bull have been plagued by problems with their Renault engine, as Lotus
were on Friday, and Button did admit he was “very happy” to have a Mercedes
engine in his McLaren. The 2009 champion also dismissed fears that the grid
will be extremely spread out come Melbourne.
Lewis Hamilton, who raced with Button at McLaren, had his own gearbox issues
which halted him at 89 laps, in what he described as a “fairly average” day.
Asked if he followed Red Bull’s troubles, the 2008 world champion replied:
“No. There’s enough on our hands at the moment, so we just have to focus on
ourselves.”
As Button noted, in 2014 there could be a few slightly unfamiliar faces
fighting at the front, and one of those is Force India, who topped the
timesheets for the second day in a row on Friday.
Sergio Perez was fastest with a 1m35.7s lap, with the Ferrari of Fernando
Alonso close behind.
The Mexican said: “In the last two days we’ve made great steps forward. And
believe me: we needed days like these, as we’ve had a bag full of problems
and so days like these go down very well.”
Meanwhile, Formula One’s bosses decided against extending the hugely unpopular
double points plan to the final three races of the season. Bernie Ecclestone
had hoped to extend the idea beyond the final race in Abu Dhabi, but at a
meeting of F1’s strategy group on Friday it was rejected. The teams’
association was also officially disbanded, in a widely anticipated move.