Crisis-struck Red Bull is hoping to merely “survive” the looming first race of the 2014 season.<\/p>\n
The reigning world champion team looked to have taken a step forward as the final pre-season test began on Thursday in Bahrain.<\/p>\n
At the wheel of the troubled Renault-powered RB10, Daniel Ricciardo had a promising morning — until the latest technical problems left him stranded in the garage for most of the rest of the entire test day.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, the Australian was his usual upbeat self.<\/p>\n
“From the outside, it looks like we are not doing many laps and that the times are not good,” he is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.<\/p>\n
“But as a team we are confident that we will be with the frontrunners (in 2014),” Ricciardo insisted.<\/p>\n
“It is difficult to really predict what will happen, but we can say that we will not dominate in Melbourne as we did at the end of last season.”<\/p>\n
Red Bull’s always-blunt Marko, however, sounded a less positive note.<\/p>\n
“We have to somehow survive Melbourne,” the Austrian told Germany’s Sport Bild.<\/p>\n
He said Renault’s troubled ‘power unit’ means Red Bull is often missing 165 horse power to the leading Mercedes, “which is about 30kph on the straights!<\/p>\n
“That’s why we have sent a taskforce to France,” revealed Marko, referring to Renault’s Viry headquarters.<\/p>\n
“Our people have just helped Renault write a new software programme.”<\/p>\n
Renault says it had made real progress, which is timely given the FIA’s looming engine development ‘freeze’ deadline of Friday.<\/p>\n
“Yes, some problems we are yet to understand,” Remi Taffin acknowledged, according to the Russian website f1news.ru.<\/p>\n
“But over the past six years, approximately 95 per cent of the parts in the V8 engine were refined compared to the first version,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We have made a big step forward between the first test and now with the new power unit.\u00a0 Yes we’re a little behind schedule, we still have certain problems, but they are gradually being resolved,” Taffin added.<\/p>\n
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