Vettel: “Where we expected to be” with Red Bull

While Lotus seemed to be the team in top form in Jerez, Red Bull exhibited a certain discretion—like McLaren and Ferrari—mainly due to mechanical problems that hampered Mark Webber but especially Sebastian Vettel. Thus, the RB8 only completed 296 laps, the fewest number of laps after Ferrari (270) and HRT (106), which only participated in the first two days with last year’s car.

After 146 laps behind the wheel of his new ride – including 96 laps on Thursday alone – Sebastian Vettel still refuses to give his verdict: “If I had clairvoyant powers, I could tell you right away, but that’s not the case. I’ve done 96 laps and that’s certainly not enough to get a measure of something as complicated as a Formula One car. All I can say is that I feel comfortable, and my gut tells me the signals are green,” confides Sebastian Vettel in an interview with the official Formula One site, at the end of his first laps with the RB8. “I think we are where we expected to be, and for now, we can be satisfied,” adds the German driver further in the interview.

The reigning world champion was able to assess the loss of the blown diffuser that had made his RB7 the ultimate weapon in 2011: « With the regulation changes, we have less grip than last year, and I think we all need to adapt to it. The only solution is to accumulate kilometers. We’ve encountered a few mechanical problems, nothing serious, but as these are tests, we need to dig deeper to find the cause of each one. […] At the moment, we don’t have many spare parts for the new car, so it wouldn’t make sense to go on track like a raging bull. Besides, the last time I was in a race car was two months ago, so you definitely need to use your brain before your foot » says the German, who, unlike Fernando Alonso, doesn’t pay attention to the times achieved this week.

The Red Bull driver also indicates that the regulation changes will have very little impact on his driving style: Less grip means we can no longer go as fast in the corners and it doesn’t allow the tires to work as well as in the past. But it was rather cold here and, last year, we had the same tire issues when temperatures were low. But once the season started and we had normal racing conditions, everything worked well. There’s no reason to panic, but you probably need to work a bit differently and adapt your driving style.

For Sebastian Vettel, it is too early to draw conclusions from the Jerez tests and the upcoming season: “When you go out at the right time, with the right tires and an empty tank, you can set a good time. My opinion is that in Barcelona, we will see what the other cars have under the hood. You cannot predict a season based on test times. I think the teams that can accumulate kilometers without encountering problems will be in good shape. Lotus seems to be in pretty good shape from what I’ve seen. They have been fast and have consistently shown good performance. Ferrari and McLaren are big question marks, just like us, maybe.”

Despite everything, the German agrees that the most important thing to work on in a new car is definitely the speed: You can work on reliability, but a reliable car that isn’t fast probably will never win.

The youngest double world champion in the discipline also reaffirms his hunger for victories and titles: « I definitely don’t want it to backfire on me: I want to stay where I am now, so we all know what the plan for this season will be. »

To draw your own conclusions from these first winter tests, discover the summary of the Jerez private tests, offered by the casinoenligne.uk.com editorial team.