Formula One news

Red Bull in the desert top five

The Red Bull team may not have shone in Bahrain on Friday in the same fashion as during the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend, although drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber still enjoyed a strong day of setup work and tyre evaluation on their way to top five positions.

With Vettel fourth and Webber fifth, the two Renault-powered cars were separated by just five hundredths of a second in the second session. "Obviously it's back to normal now," Vettel said. "Last weekend was fantastic, but we have to carry on as there's a lot of work to do! It was a normal Friday, and we were more or less able to do our full programme and had no issues with the car. Performance wise, it's difficult to comment, but the car feels alright."

Vettel won for Red Bull from pole in China last Sunday

The German admitted that the team was struggling to find pace in the morning session but made improvements later on in the day; Vettel also noticed the significant difference between temperatures in the desert and those in Shanghai. "I think everyone was surprised at how hot it is when you leave the pits in the car," he continued. "It's like someone's blowing a heat gun in your face! It's better with the visor closed than open, otherwise you just get more hot air blowing at you."

"It's obviously different conditions here," Webbed added. "We have very dry conditions and, as usual, Bahrain throws up its challenge with car balance. We had a productive Friday, running on both tyres and the car ran faultlessly. In terms of pace it's always hard to say who's where on Friday, but hopefully we're in good shape again to get some good results on Sunday."

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