Webber upbeat after first Red Bull test
Mark Webber has given Red Bull Racing's new RB6 an instant thumbs up after its first day of testing - and reckons the team has delivered exactly what it needed to for this season
Despite losing track time at Jerez through a precautionary engine change, and rain affecting the day's running, Webber was upbeat about his early impressions of the car.
"It was a pretty positive feeling actually," said the Australian. "It wasn't exactly a clean day of testing with the changeable conditions but that is the same with everyone.
"Then we had an unfortunate, pretty basic oil leak that turned into a bit more of a palaver than that. It was unfortunate that with hindsight we probably could have handled it a little bit better, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
"We haven't done the track time that we should have, but in the end we still got 50 laps on the car. Hopefully tomorrow it is dry so we can get more information."
Although almost the entire day was wet, the conditions were good enough for Webber to feel that the car was doing what he hoped it would.
"Everything felt as we targeted and expected," he said. "On a normal wet, slippery day at Jerez it felt fine. There were no real vices in the car.
"We still have to understand a few things with it, but now it is shaken down we can start to do a bit of work tomorrow. Then in the back part of the month we can start to look at lap times.
"It's impossible [to judge the speed exactly] because you've got people out there who are one minute flying and the next minute not flying, so it's hard to say who is doing what."
And although some have expressed surprise that the RB6 is just an evolution of last year's successful RB5, Webber is convinced enough by the work that technical chief Adrian Newey has done as the team targets world title glory in 2010.
"I saw the car months ago so I knew what it was like," he said. "Everyone copied his ideas from last year, which is a real credit to Adrian, but there is only so much the guy can do.
"You don't know what he might come up with and you might think it is going to be strange or different, but he has generally done a good job of designing F1 cars for regulation changes.
"We are very confident that this is a strong evolution of what we had last year and we hope it stands us in good stead. But hoping and wishing doesn't get you anywhere. We know what we are up against and we are respectful of the opposition. We've done enough, that's all you can do."
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