'No guarantees', but Verstappen looking forward to racing

A successful three-day pre-season test in Bahrain ended on the best possible note for Red Bull Racing, with Sergio Perez topping the times in the morning and Max Verstappen putting in the quickest lap of all in the afternoon.

"It was another good day and we got through the whole programme," said Verstappen, whose time of 1:28.960s was a tenth quicker than Yuki Tusnoda in the sister AlphaTauri.

"We had to adjust the car a bit as we went along but from our side it was very smooth, as it has been throughout the whole test," he said. "I think we can say it has been a good weekend

• Read also: Verstappen insists Red Bull 'aren't favourites' for 2021 title

"But of course that doesn’t give you any guarantees," he warned, looking ahead to the first race of the season in two weeks time. "All teams are doing different programmes at testing.

"We always look into what we can improve and for sure there are still things we want to work on, but I think all teams will have that.

"We’ll find out for sure in a couple of weeks in Q3 where we really are but in general I would say the car feels good and I’m looking forward to going racing.”

"Today was more about trying to optimise the car and understand where we’re going," added Red Bull's head of race engineering Guillaume Rocquelin. "Shorter runs, more set-up items, a bit more time in the garage.

"It was a similar plan for both drivers and similar results for both. Overall, this has been a positive test phase," he said. "Three days are never going to be enough; I don’t think anyone would say they are, but in terms of the time available, what we got out of this test was very useful."

As for Perez, he's clearly enjoying every minute in his new team after moving to Red Bull from Racing Point over the winter - leaving him little time to adjust to his new surroundings before the start of the season.

“It’s crazy to think that pre-season has already finished, it feels like it only just started," he acknowledged. "I think this is the shortest pre-season ever in my career!

"There’s a very limited amount of running and testing but we managed to work through a lot of set-up options and are improving every time we get into the car.

"I’m very excited about the season and I think we’ve got a good car underneath us, but I still have a lot to learn in the car to get the maximum out of it.

"It doesn’t really matter where we start in Bahrain, it matters where we finish in Abu Dhabi," he pointed out. "We’re going to take it step by step and be patient in the beginning and then things will come to us.”

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter