Red Bull: Vettel expects a difficult Bahrain Grand Prix

According to Sebastian Vettel, the main issue with the Sakhir circuit is the high speed. He explains to Skysports: « Here, it’s tricky. There are obviously a lot of straights; I think we’ll have to save fuel on Sunday, much more than in Malaysia – it’s just the nature of the track. »

Indeed, this should favor the powerful Mercedes engine. On this point, the four-time world champion has no illusions: « I think we saw throughout the winter testing and in the first two Grand Prix in Australia and Malaysia, that Mercedes are the favorites. They have the strongest package; they are much faster than us on the straights. »

Regarding the Mercedes team, Vettel, being a good sport, concedes that: « On all tracks, you have straights and at the moment, it’s no secret, look at the top speeds: we know we are slow, as well as other teams that are too slow to compete with them.

We are losing too much time on that side. But I’m not complaining. Honestly, they’ve done a very good job, so they deserve to be ahead.

However, the Red Bull team has made great progress and the RB10 is a good car with room for improvement: « It will be difficult, but the first two races were very positive for us. We have learned that the car is fast and has potential. It’s up to us to give our best and we will see where we stand. »

Like most observers, the Austrian team did not expect to find themselves in this position so early in the season: « I think we are already much closer than we thought before and than everyone else thought, which is a good thing, and we need to focus on what is within our power to do. »

As in previous years, Red Bull is focusing primarily on long-term development:

« At the moment, we are making great strides forward, which is good. We just need to make sure we are taking bigger steps than the others. »

Ricciardo with low aerodynamic downforce

As for his teammate Daniel Ricciardo, he received a ten-place grid penalty for an unsafe release for the Bahrain race.

On this subject, the Australian is fatalistic but confident in his team: « I’ve had some time to think about it and there’s actually not much to patch up. The team assured me that they would do everything possible to fix the issue and that they would do their best to prevent it from happening again, especially now that the penalty is so severe. »

To make up for these ten penalty places, he will probably focus on an aggressive setup for Sunday with work on top speed: «Obviously, I’ll have to overtake if I want to move up the rankings; maybe a setup with low aerodynamic downforce will be beneficial.

There is always a compromise to be made: how many grid spots are you willing to sacrifice to have a better car in the race, but if I had to choose one of these two evils, I would certainly take a car set up for the race and be able to attack hard.