Red Bull delayed by overnight car modifications

Mark Webber’s final day of pre-season testing got off to a slow start this morning as the team was delayed in the garage with overnight changes to the car. Once on track, Mark concentrated on evaluating the changed items and ended the day with seventh-fastest time.

Red Bull Racing did indeed change a lot of things on their car and was seen frequently with flowviz paint to verify car updates. Among those are a new front wing, modified vanity panel and an optimised rear end.

Mark Webber: “I would obviously have liked to get a few more laps in today, but that’s the way it goes sometimes in testing. We had a few small issues with the car today which delayed us a couple of times and while it wasn’t ideal I think we still learned plenty.

“In terms of the overall feeling at the end of my spell of testing, I think we’ve done well and we have made a step forward. As I’ve said before it’s very difficult to see a real pecking order. We’ve just always been focused on what we have to do and not really looked too hard at anyone else. The important thing now is just to get out to Melbourne and get on with the racing. We have some work to do, for sure, and we have a few things we need to iron out, but that’s the same for everybody.

“Looking at the first race, I think it’s going to be a tight grand prix. There are a lot of quick cars out there and hopefully we have one of them. However, Melbourne is a very particular race, with very specific demands, so we’ll treat it as one race, then go to Malaysia and see how things shake up there. The season moves fast and you have to prepare for every race.”

Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum said: “It wasn’t the easiest day for us today. We had quite a bit of work to do overnight with some changes we wanted to make and that delayed us a little bit in getting out in the morning. We had quite a few things we wanted to evaluate today. However, we had much better weather today so when Mark was out we were able to get through quite a lot of work. The guys in the garage did a phenomenal job in getting everything right. Seb’s back in the car tomorrow for the final day of testing here in Barcelona.”