Horner not reading too much into F1 testing times

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner is refusing to read too much into the times from the first F1 pre-season test in Jerez, instead preferring to reserve his judgement for when more extensive running has been completed.

Horner was pleased that Red Bull suffered no repeat of its miserable start to the 2014 pre-season in Jerez earlier this week as the RB11 car made its on-track debut.

Last year, the team completed just 14 laps at the first test and encountered a number of technical issues with the new Renault power unit.

However, Horner was pleased to report after the latest test in Jerez that the team enjoyed a more positive start to life with its new car, which will sport a special dazzle camouflage livery throughout pre-season.

“It was a lot more positive than last year,” Horner said. “Yes, we had issues but they were not major ones compared to the fundamental problems we had last year, with the car not running cleanly or overheating or simply setting itself on fire!”

“We had a few niggling issues but this was much more of a standard pre-season test than the one we experienced 12 months ago.”

Despite enjoying a less stressful test, Red Bull failed to feature at the top of the timesheets at any point across the four-day test as Ferrari and Sauber led the way. However, Horner is not concerned by this.

“It’s very difficult to read too much into it,” he said. “Kimi Raikkonen was the quickest guy at the first test last year and that didn’t follow through to the rest of the season, so there’s not much point in looking at headline times.

“We tend to not pay too much attention to what the opposition are doing and we very much just focus on ourselves.”

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