Red Bull’s preparations for the Formula 1 season hit a new low at the final pre-season test. World champion Sebastian Vettel failed to complete one lap at Bahrain on Saturday, but still had two breakdowns in the troublesome RB10 car.
It took Red Bull 150 minutes to get him on the track, after which Vettel stopped four corners into his lap. When the team attempted to send him out again, the car broke down in the pit lane. That was it for the day.
The fastest time of the penultimate day of running before the first race of the season in Australia on 16 March was set by Williams’s Felipe Massa. The ex-Ferrari driver set a time of one minute 33.258 seconds while focusing on low-fuel performance runs, 0.226secs quicker than Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg managed on a similar plan.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was third, 2.168secs off the pace, from McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen, Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Lotus also had a difficult day, with Franco-Swiss Romain Grosjean completing only 33 laps and setting the ninth fastest time amid a series of problems before the team ended their running with a problem with the kinetic energy-recovery motor generator unit.
