It seems working through the night to fix its problems hasn’t quite done the trick for Red Bull, after Daniel Ricciardo could only manage half a lap before his RB10 ground to a smoking halt.
Whilst the cause of the stoppage hasn’t been confirmed, it’s widely believed that Red Bull aren’t providing enough cooling to the power unit due to the way in which they have installed and packaged the Renault V6.
Red Bull managed just 14 laps over the three days – the majority of those consisting of in/out laps – and called an early end to day three of testing after just three laps.
That’s a major concern for the Milton Keynes outfit which has completed the least laps of any team currently in Jerez (minus Marussia which is yet to run at all).
Ricciardo’s first outing came over three hours into the session before it ended part-way through sector two, causing a red flag as the marshals extinguished the flames coming from the rear of his RB10.
30 minutes later, the Australian ventured out again and managed an in and out lap at a fairly slow pace.
This comes when all three engine manufacturers are attempting to complete as much basic mileage as possible to gain data on their new power units. They’re not even running at full power, with Mercedes and Ferrari reportedly keeping it below 13,000 revs – the units are capable of 2,000 more.
So far, Mercedes power units have clocked 361 laps, Ferrari 198 and Renault just 71.
