The Red Bull car covered in tarpaulin has become a familiar sight this winter,
and Saturday’s poor running will be a bitter blow to the team, who had
seemed genuinely buoyed by a relatively positive day on Friday when Daniel
Ricciardo managed a promising run of about 20 laps at a good pace.
“This is the 10th day of testing and we are about 10 days behind I reckon,”
was Horner’s bleak assessment. Sadly for him, 11 days are now gone, and just
one remains to recover what has been a disastrous testing campaign.
Vettel, the dominant force of recent reasons, did his best to put a brave face
on the team’s struggles.
“It’s not the best situation to be in but we can’t change it,” he said.
“Everybody is extremely motivated to change it, which doesn’t happen
overnight.
“At this stage reliability is still a big question mark for us. We’ve had
quite a lot of problems, and damaged a lot of parts which are not available
overnight, so it’s not that easy to fix things.”
He admitted he could not predict where the team would find themselves come the
first race in Australia in two weeks’ time.
“It’s very difficult to foresee what’s going to happen. We thought we would be
in a much better place this week compared to last week [of testing], but it
hasn’t been the case.”
The four-time double world champions did at least see the funny side of their
troubles yesterday, tweeting a photo of a soapbox car with the caption:
“Plan B?…”
All jokes aside, Saturday’s running was almost pitiful in its brevity.
Horner returned to Milton Keynes overnight with the team facing two crucial
weeks to salvage what has so far been a shocking 2014 campaign.
The 40-year-old said there was no “silver bullet” to the world champion’s
woes, adding: “There is still plenty to do and we are still definitely on
the back foot, but we are pushing hard to catch up.
“I’m very confident we’ll overcome the issues; the question is when and how
quickly.”
Away from Red Bull, most of the paddock enjoyed a relatively successful day of
running, with the exception of Sauber, who stopped on the first lap with a
car fire.
For the third day in a row Mercedes
did not have an entirely trouble-free day, having to start late due to a
precautionary engine change; the first main sign of weakness in their power
unit this pre-season.
Towards the end of the day teams started to run in qualifying trim, trading
faster lap times. Williams, who have been the surprise package of
pre-season, topped the time sheets ahead of Mercedes with an impressive 1min
33.2sec lap.
Meanwhile, Bahrain circuit organisers announced they are to name the first
corner of the circuit in Sakhir after Formula One legend Michael
Schumacher.
The seven-time champion, who is still in the “waking up process” of his
medically- induced coma in hospital after a skiing accident, helped to
design the layout of turn one and won the inaugural race in 2004.
Sabine Kehm, speaking on behalf of Schumacher’s family, said: “I am convinced
Michael will love the idea and feel very honoured about having a Bahrain
International Circuit corner named after him.”