Red Bull have admitted that their strong pre-season form doesn’t offer ‘guarantees’ heading into new season.
Max Verstappen proved fastest overall across Formula One’s 2021 pre-season testing with the fastest overall time of a 1m 28.960 and topped the timesheets on two of the three days of running in Bahrain.
The 23 year-old however admitted despite enjoying a ‘good weekend’ that there is reason to be cautious heading into the new season which starts on 26 March with Practice for Bahrain Grand Prix, saying: “… of course that doesn’t give you any guarantees and all teams are doing different programmes at testing.”
Verstappen though has vowed that the team will keen to push forward and make steps forward ahead of the season opener back in Bahrain in a fortnight’s time, adding: “We always look into what we can improve and for sure there are still things we want to work on but I think all teams have that.”
Qualifying therefore is Verstappen main focus in terms of discovering the real pecking order but he is confident that the RB16B ‘feels good’ and is ‘looking forward’ to getting the season underway.
This season though sees Verstappen joined by Sergio Perez who signed for the four-time Constructor Champions in mid December, with the Mexican feeling that he is ‘improving’ with every lap in the RB16B despite enduring his shortest pre-season ever as a racing driver.
Perez set the eighth fastest overall time across three days of testing but his main focus was on exploring a variety of set-up options, yet is confident that 2021 could be a strong season, commenting: “… I think we’ve got a good car underneath us but I still have a lot to learn in the car to get the maximum out of it.”
Red Bull’s Head of Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin meanwhile is happy with how the three-day test has gone in terms of ‘positive’ data with room for improvement, adding: “We’ve got a really good base to build from and we’re looking forward to coming back to Bahrain in a couple of weeks.”
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