Webber upbeat but cautious

Mark Webber is hoping Red Bull Racing have cracked the reliability issues that blighted 2007.

At the unveiling of the team’s new challenger for this season, the RB4, at a damp Circuito de Jerez in southern Spain, confidence and optimism are naturally high ahead of the forthcoming campaign.

However, as Webber concedes, “talk is very cheap” at this stage of the year as teams go through a degree of sandbagging in test sessions ahead of the first grand prix in Melbourne in mid-March.

For Webber and Red Bull, greater reliability is the simple key to a hoped-for improved season as he and team-mate David Coulthard endured 10 retirements between them due to mechanical failure.

If Red Bull can eradicate those problems, the team could move out of a congested midfield and push BMW Sauber, who last season were clearly the third best team on the grid.

“Of course, you want a fast car, but you want a reliable one too,” said Webber, with Coulthard on track in the new car for the first time providing part of the background.

“Kimi (Raikkonen) saw that in the biggest light, going from McLaren to driving the Ferrari where he had a reliable car and he got the championship done.

“Not that we’re aiming for the championship this season because it is a bit out of our league, but reliability to finish races is vital. You look at all the effort that goes into getting to grands prix and competing in them, the whole shooting match.

“If you break down on lap one or two laps from the end then it’s very, very frustrating for everybody, including the driver, if you have technical problems.

“This year the car should be a damn sight better than last year, but then it’s not too hard to improve on what we did last year.”

Half of the team’s technical retirements last year were suffered in the opening five races, leading Webber to simply state: “I hope our starting point is at a stronger level.

“As BMW showed, that can carry you through the first 70 per cent of the championship, and then you scrabble your way home. So we need a much better performance from the start, and while we are optimistic, in this industry talk is very cheap.

“I’ve been around a few cars, and you are always optimistic it’s a big step forward on the predecessor. You do get a pretty good idea in testing, but until you get the gloves off in Melbourne, you don’t find out where you really are.

“So talk is good, but results are even better, and for me that is when you get the answers.”

Team boss Christian Horner concedes he is “pretty confident” the team “have addressed the problems that blighted the team during 2007.”

He added: “Our goal now is to build on the momentum we saw at the end of last year.

“We’ve a group now working more cohesively, and the performance steps we saw at the end of last year is at least where we are looking to start from with the current car.

“You’re still going to have the big two up front, and then it will be very close behind them, so it will undoubtedly be an extremely competitive year. But we will be pushing extremely hard to make sure we’re at the top of that group.”

The team, meanwhile, have confirmed 19-year-old Swiss Sebastien Buemi as their test driver for this year.