Red Bull – Vettel: “No reason to see everything in black”
After not completing any full laps today, due to yet another issue with the Renault-powered Red Bull RB10, Sebastian Vettel mainly sought to put the situation into perspective and urged his team to unite to overcome the difficulties.
The third day of the final private testing session of the season will have been one of the worst for Red Bull. The four-time world champion team, which has not run much since the first day of testing in Jerez, thought they had something to work with after a rather good day the previous day, with Daniel Ricciardo managing to complete 66 laps.
This was not counting on a technical problem that didn’t even allow Sebastian Vettel, driving the RB10 this Saturday, to complete a single lap in eight hours. A general situation that surprises the four-time world champion, who expected better: « We thought we would be in a better position this week compared to last week. That wasn’t really the case, » he stated to our British colleagues at Autosport.
He nevertheless calls for calm: “There is no reason to let emotions overwhelm us at this moment. We really need to take it step by step. We know how serious it is, especially within the team, from Renault’s side and ours,” he admits, before adding: “We have been a team for the last five years and things have been fantastic.” Words that are reminiscent of the end of the 2013 season, when the German urged his team to enjoy “these moments that will not last forever.”
Sebastian Vettel remembers that Red Bull has already gone through more or less severe crises: « There were difficult days and delicate moments, like when we had an engine failure [in South Korea, in 2010, editor’s note] with two races remaining, it almost decided the title, which wasn’t great. There were other mistakes on our side, and on the driver’s side. We are a team. These things happen. »
For him, it is essential to work hard and stay positive: « There is no reason to see everything negatively. We know it’s a difficult time, but everyone is aware of that and motivated to get through it, move forward, and discover where we stand. »
The Red Bull driver also believes that the distance and proximity between the two test sessions is an aggravating factor: « I think some things will sort themselves out simply because in two weeks, we will have a lot of new parts. Obviously, we had many issues and as a result, we damaged a lot of parts that aren’t available in the evening, and also, we are in Bahrain so it’s not easy to repair. It will be better once we are in Australia. »
On the potential of the RB10, S. Vettel has a good feeling: « With the very, very few laps we did, the car seemed good. I was very happy with it. Obviously, it’s a step back compared to last year in terms of overall grip, but it wasn’t too bad. There is hope on that front. »
So far, in these tests, Red Bull has completed 105 laps, which is a little over 568 km. Sebastian Vettel will be driving the RB10 tomorrow.
