After a stop start first day of testing with Daniel Riccirado, Red Bull finally got some serious mileage on their new RB13 with Max Verstappen in the cockpit, but are yet to give it full gas at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Verstappen managed 89 laps on Tuesday, while his teammate was restricted to only 39 thanks to sensor and battery issues 24 hours earlier.
The 19 year old Dutchman was happy at the end of his first day back at the ‘office’ and told reporters, “For us at the moment it is not showing how quick we can be.”
“It is the first test week, the second day, I think it is much more important just to get the mileage to see if all the parts are okay, and then we will see in the next few days how fast we are.”
“We are not focused on lap times yet, it is still way too early. Everybody is doing their own programmes so you don’t really know where you are but we can be happy with the day as we’ve done a lot of mileage.”
“I think the reliability [of the power unit] was pretty good, we didn’t have any issues and I think it is important to get the mileage in first because it is a new engine again. It is too early to say where we are with the engine but they’ve made a step which is always positive,” added Verstappen.
Much is expected of Red Bull with the new regulations favouring aerodynamics, an area where their engineering guru Adrian Newey tends to excel. Time will tell if the TAG Heuer badged Renault engine can deliver the required horsepower and reliability to challenge the dominance of Mercedes.