Red Bull ‘competitive without even trying’ in testing

Red Bull have claimed they were competitive “without even trying” at the end of Bahrain’s second day of official testing.

While Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren have found themselves in the headlines for different reasons on track, Red Bull have been fairly understated in comparison.

Mercedes have raised eyebrows with the appearance of their W13 minus sidepods andFerrari with their pace, while McLaren have been affected by brake problems.

对红牛来说,这都是很平静的和fterSergio Perezcompleted 138 laps on Thursday,Max Verstappenpumped in 86 on Friday with the second fastest time of the 15 drivers during the scheduled eight hours of running.

Day 2 complete ✅ 86 laps on the board for@Max33Verstappenwith a best time of 1:34.011 ⏱#F1Testingpic.twitter.com/HCrur8WGsh

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)March 11, 2022

Kevin Magnussen later went fastest of all in the Haas, but that was during their permitted extra hour when the temperatures had cooled down.

There was satisfaction in the Red Bull camp, especially as it appeared they had not over-exerted – suggesting the sandbags had been piled up.

“It was more of a stop-start day today, mostly by design,” explained Guillaume Rocquelin, Red Bull’s head of race engineering.

“We had a good continuous run yesterday, so today was more about exploring and testing different things.

“我们花更多的时间在车库里更改to the car and also taking more risks. We learned a lot and gathered a lot of information today.

“I’m quite happy with what we found out. We are progressing in different directions and it’s all very positive. We were reasonably competitive at the end without even trying.”

With only nine cars on track during the afternoon, it was rare that two were in close proximity doing similar kinds of run plan – but that was the case when Verstappen found himself on the same patch as tarmac as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, and a little ‘race’ ensued.

“It was fun to have a little battle with Carlos,” said Verstappen of the dice with his former Toro Rosso team-mate.

“I think he was on a long run with more fuel and I was on a shorter run and once I caught him he started using DRS. I think he wanted to race as well.

“I think we did as good a job as we could today. It was very warm and there were quite a few red flags. It was quite a good day, all pretty standard and we put quite a good amount of laps on the car.”