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No nasty surprises - Webber

Mark Webber at the wheel of the RB8 on Tuesday © Sutton Images

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• Mark Webber

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Mark Webber was happy with the Red Bull RB8's first day of testing at Jerez, despite a late start due to some pieces of the rear wing assembly arriving late.

Webber set the fourth fastest time by the end of the day, but missed out on most the morning due to the delay. Technical director Adrian Newey later explained that it was due to a plane carrying parts being diverted to Seville airport to avoid morning fog in Jerez. Nevertheless, Webber was happy with the running he had.

"I feel good in the car," he said. "It's doing pretty much everything we expected, which is nice, with no nasty surprises. It's incredibly early obviously in the concept of the car so we did not as much running as we would have liked - a little bit short but not a bad little recovery. A lot of questions, a lot of things to go through, a lot of directions and a lot of ideas about what we need to do to put the car together for a full championship, not just for Jerez but for the whole season."

He said the car felt similar to how last year's championship-winning Red Bull felt when it first hit the track in 2011.

"[It was] probably not a million miles away from an RB7 at the start of the RB7's life," he added. "But obviously the RB7 was developed, like a lot of the other cars, with the diffuser over the year. We always come to Jerez and drive the cars in the baby format; Jerez never gets to see the cars at their best - Brazil does. So the cars are much better at the end of the year than they are at the start of the year. The design for the blown diffuser, the front wing regulations [have changed], you know that, we know that, we just need to keep making the car as best we can."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.