Max Verstappen found his Red Bull RB13 slowing to a halt just two laps short of a race distance during testing on Wednesday, a problem in his Renault engine letting him down. Despite the premature end to his day, however, the Dutchman insisted that Renault knew what to do to fix the issue.
Speaking after the breakdown, he said: "I think we had an issue with the MGU-K. We are quite confident that we can solve these problems for now. The Renault boys already have some things in place to change for Melbourne so it should be alright."
The stoppage led to a power unit change, which forced the Red Bull mechanics to sacrifice their lunch break, but the team still ended the day with more laps under their belt than any of their rivals. Verstappen added that he was not concerned by questions about the pace of the RB13, after his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo claimed the team could not match Ferrari or Mercedes.
"I think the good thing is nobody has two seconds in their pockets," he said. "We'll see. It's really difficult because you don't know how much fuel the others are running and also the cars are still pretty new. So you can do a lot of setup changes and suddenly you can find the right one and then you can work in that direction and then gain even more.
"It's a smooth balance. It's a predictable car. When you turn in and you know exactly what the car is going to do. We got a lot of data. I think when you are doing longer runs, it has been very positive."
Mason Hawker
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Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
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