Red Bull halts test early againposted in F130 | 01 | 2014
RED BULL WAS forced to stop its testing at Jerez early for the second successive day. The five-times world champs' new Renault-powered RB10 has been plagued by a series of electrical and overheating problems.
Today it abandoned the test after just three laps: so far this week, in the opening three days, the car has only managed a combined total of 14 laps of the Spanish track. Today alone. Lewis hamilton completed 62 in his Mercedes.
While Renault has admitted that some of the issues were its fault, specifically in relation to the energy store, the first day of running was delayed by it fitting a part incorrectly.
A sign of just how concerning the problems are was highlighted when Red Bull team principal Christian Horner and technical chief Adrian Newey left the track early in the afternoon. Neither made any comment to the waiting media.
Later, in a statement issued by the team, race engineering co-ordinator Andy Damerum (pictured above with Christian Horner) reckoned the Milton Keynes-based team could still make up for the lost time.
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"We worked hard yesterday to make the changes it was felt were necessary to overcome the problems we identified and we were hopeful of a more successful day today," Damerum said.
"Unfortunately, the measures we took only partially solved the issue and, as with yesterday, it's more sensible to stop and dig deeper into finding a solution.
"It's obviously not where we want to be, and naturally the whole team is frustrated by these issues.
"However, we're pretty good at bouncing back from this type of thing. This is where the whole team pulls together and I'm sure we will get these problems fixed."
McLaren's new boy, Kevin Magnussen, topped the timesheets at the end of the day having completed 52 laps and clocking a fastest time of 1min 23.276secs.
He was followed by Felipe Massa in his Williams — like the McLaren, powered by Mercedes — just 0.424s back, with Hamilton third, 0.676s behind Magnussen.
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Jim McGill
Photo: Getty Images