Coulthard buoyed by reliability

As rival teams have suffered reliability problems, both with their cars and engines, over the course of the Jerez test, Coulthard and the entire Red Bull Racing team have admitted that they are massively encouraged by the lack of dramas they have encountered.

Speaking exclusively to autosport.com, Coulthard said: "We did lots of laps - in the five days we were here we did as many as we could. We don't seem to have real reliability problems and we have covered race distances."

Speaking about how just how quick he believes the RB1 is, Coulthard said it was too early to say - especially because the team's focus on ensuring the car is reliable left it with too little time to go for ultra quick laps.

"We did play with the set up a little bit but having to do those laps didn't allow us to play with it much," he said. "I know everybody is working hard, I mean other teams also, so we only get to find out where we are when we get to Melbourne. A good thing is that we are not battling with major reliability issues."