Red Bull: Checo's feedback pretty much the same as Max’s

Red Bull: Checo’s feedback pretty much the same as Max’s

Jad Mallak 2 min read

Red Bull: Checo's feedback pretty much the same as Max’s

Red Bull’s second day of Formula 1 testing at Barcelona was not as smooth as their first, but at least their drivers’ feedback on the RB18 is identical.

Sergio Perez got the chance to driver the team’s new RB18 on Thursday, but could not match Max Verstappen‘s tally of 147 laps achieved on the previous day, as the Mexican suffered from gearbox issues that curtailed his running to only 78 laps with a best time of 1:21.430 putting him seventh on the time screens.

Red Bull however, do not seem worried about their gearbox niggle, but were happy with Perez’s settling-in with the new car.

Guillaume Rocquelin, Head of Race Engineering said of the day: “Checo got up to speed pretty quickly this morning and his feedback is pretty much the same as Max’s, which means we know where we are going and everything is fairly settled.

“Every time the car comes back to the garage we’re making changes and fine-tuning the direction so, all in all, I’m happy,” he went on.

“We had a small issue today, which meant we lost around half a day’s running but we aren’t particularly worried about the problem itself, it is just a pain that we lost that time.

“However, it shouldn’t affect things in the long-term, as we have a solid platform and we’re happy with the progress we’re making,” Rocquelin maintained.

Checo took some good learnings from Thursday

Perez also commented on his truncated day, as he tried to focus on the positives, which are the things he learned while in the cockpit of the RB18.

“We took some good learnings from today and I’m pleased with that,” the Mexican said in the team’s press release.

“We are trying some very different things and we have a lot of information to work through, so I think in the meetings it is important to go in-depth and give the engineers as much feedback as possible.

“The issue with the gearbox took a little bit longer to fix than we expected, but it is fine, it’s expected that these things happen at testing,” Perez said of the breakdown he encountered on track.

“I’ll be back in the car tomorrow and I hope the weather stays dry,” he hoped.

Perez will share the driving duties with Verstappen on the final day of running, as Pirelli plan to run a wet weather simulation in the afternoon session.