Red Bull can cope with missing the first test of the 2016 F1 season if a late power unit deal comes together.
The team's future in the sport is uncertain as team owner Dietrich Mateschitz threatens to quit if he is unable to secure a competitive power unit. With Mercedes unwilling to supply Red Bull and Ferrari only offering older power units, a solution has yet to be reached.
Chief engineer Paul Monaghan admits the team is already behind as a result of not having a power unit deal in place, but he says Red Bull has the ability to recover even if it was to miss out on the opening test of next season.
"It’s getting a little bit late," Monaghan said. "At the moment it will be a squeeze but we’ll do it. I guess if you’re… OK, we can go to the first test and it can be a washout for three or four days, so it’s wrong to say that anybody that runs the first test will automatically have a benefit on us. Yeah, they might, but we could cope – so however the land lies, we’ll deal with it."
The first test of 2016 is provisionally scheduled to take place from February 22-25 at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya.
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