Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Horner: Renault issues “not major”

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Christian Horner says the issues faced by Red Bull and Renault during the first pre-season test at Jerez “were not major ones”.

With Renault looking to make up a significant performance deficit to Mercedes this year, the first test at Jerez saw Red Bull’s running limited to just 166 laps, with only the new McLaren-Honda managing less. However, with Red Bull completing 21 laps at the same stage last year, he says the problems which need rectifying by the second test are relatively small.

“It was a lot more positive than last year,” Horner said. “Yes, we had issues but they were not major ones compared to the fundamental problems we had last year, with the car not running cleanly or overheating or simply setting itself on fire! Yes, we had a few niggling issues but this was much more of a standard pre-season test than the one we experienced 12 months ago.”

Hinting at the magnitude of the difference between the 2014 power unit and the new offering from Renault, Horner says he had expected to uncover problems.

“RB11 is an evolution of RB10 and the biggest changes are in the power unit. Renault have been working very hard on that but there are always going to be a few things that catch you out.”

Click here for the full final day gallery from the Jerez test

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.