• Barcelona Testing

Vettel confident about Red Bull's reliability

The Red Bull has stopped on track twice during the Barcelona test © Getty Images

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• Drivers:
• Sebastian Vettel

• Teams:
• Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel has no concerns about the reliability of the Red Bull, despite the new car stopping twice on track in the first two days of the Barcelona test.

In 2009 Vettel got perilously close to using more than his allotted eight engines over the course of the season, and questions were raised over the reliability of the Red Bull/Renault package. However, after two full tests in Jerez and his initial impressions in Barcelona, Vettel is confident that this year's car has only encountered minor problems.

"Obviously you don't want to stop, but sometimes you don't want to risk any damage and it's better to shut the car down if you see something wrong on the data," Vettel said. "Obviously in the race you'd try to continue, so sometimes it's nothing bad but it's better to shut the car down and bring it back and have a look. But ideally you keep on running and you park the car in the garage and not somewhere on the circuit.

"But I don't think we have to fear reliability issues yet. It looks good, everything that happened I think is normal. We have a new car, new parts, everything is a bit new and slightly different in design. The cars have changed, a bigger fuel cell but also lots of new small parts, everything has changed slightly and sometimes you realise you should've done it a bit differently, but you are on top of those things very quickly."

Vettel said that judging the pace of the RB6 was more difficult, but did concede that the Ferrari looks like the fastest car so far.

"I think it will be a long season, a hard fight," he added. "It looks extremely close at the moment. I think Ferrari has a bit of an advantage now. It might change before Bahrain, who knows? It might change in the next two days. But I think nevertheless it will be extremely close within four teams - Ferrari a bit ahead, then Mercedes, McLaren and us. So that's four teams, eight drivers. It's busy but only one can win. Obviously I would love to tell you that we are a second ahead of everyone, but at the moment at least, it's not the case."

Vettel will complete his final day of pre-season testing on Saturday before handing the car over to Mark Webber on Sunday.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.