“Our guys are getting very little sleep right now – one to three hours maximum
– but it also seems to be clear there’s no such thing as a quick fix.
“We fixed the problems from Jerez with temperature [overheating] – at least
for a couple of laps – but we are in a phase where you fix one problem and
another pops up.
“So yes, there are things to solve from Red Bull’s side in terms of
reliability, as well as stuff from the Renault side. It wouldn’t be fair to
separate these two.
“We are a team – a very successful one in the last couple of years – so when
we’re facing a start to the new season that is more troubled than those in
the past, we will drive through it together and work it out.”
Hulkenberg was comfortably out in front with a lap of 1-36.880. The German’s
lap, backed by Mercedes
power, was a tenth of a second faster than the best posted in last year’s
Bahrain Grand Prix by Vettel. Hulkenberg completed 78 laps.
Hulkenberg finished 0.999 sec up on Ferrari’s
Fernando Alonso, with Mercedes’s Lewis
Hamilton and the McLaren
of Kevin Magnussen – again with a Mercedes power unit – in close attendance.
Hamilton, who managed 74 laps, had his day come to an early close due to his
own brake problem, although there was no fire like Vettel.
Regardless, a happy Hamilton said: “We’re not aiming to be top of the
timesheets at the moment, it’s more about ticking the reliability boxes, but
we can be happy with where we are before the halfway point of the pre-season
tests.”