Max Verstappen warns his “best” pre-season test with Red Bull does not guarantee success at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Dutchman was fastest overall at the end of a busy three days of action at Sakhir, with the RB16B also appearing to be the class of the field as reigning champions Mercedes struggled.
“It was another good day and we got through the whole programme,” said Verstappen after his final run on Sunday evening.
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“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.
“I think we can say it has been a good weekend.”
Last year, one of the biggest issues Red Bull had was an unpredictable rear of the car. But based on his 12 hours in the RB16B so far, Verstappen does seem more comfortable behind the wheel.
“So far, it’s been quite a stable car, so it’s nice,” he said.
“There are a lot of changes made as well to the floor, so it’s always a bit difficult once you know you’ll lose a bit of downforce on the car with this floor.
“I’m looking forward to [the first race], I guess everyone is now. I personally find a race weekend a lot more interesting, but of course, these days need to be done to understand the car better.”
With Mercedes seemingly facing reliability and performance worries, some believe Red Bull could go into the season opener also in Bahrain as favourites, but Max was cautious.
“Yeah, definitely I think it has been the best [test since I joined Red Bull], but of course that doesn’t give you any guarantees,” he declared.
“All teams are doing different programs 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.”