Red Bull closer to working out KERS technical glitches

RED BULL Racing team principal Christian Horner is confident his title-leading outfit will be able to conquer the glitches in their KERS power-boost system that have dogged them at the opening two grands prix of the season.

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel has won both races so far this season, in Australia and last weekend in Malaysia, despite the team’s difficulties with KERS.

Both the German and his team-mate Mark Webber were unable to run the system in Australia due to problems with what Horner claims is an “immature” design, while intermittent issues hit both drivers last time out in Sepang.

With this weekend’s race in China coming so soon after Malaysia, there has been little time for Red Bull to get to the nub of the problem, but Horner is confident lessons have been learned that can be put into practice in Shanghai.

“We’ve gathered a huge amount of data, so we will only learn more this week, and we plan to build on the experience we’ve had,” said Horner.

“With a system that is quite immature compared to some of our rivals, we just didn’t want to take too many risks in arguably one of the harshest environments for it (Malaysia), so we became a bit conservative in our usage.”

Asked whether the team’s battle to make KERS reliable has become the team’s main focus, Horner added: “No, no, no. McLaren and Ferrari are our chief concern.”

Although Vettel had to switch off his KERS system during the race in Malaysia, his supremacy out front was never under any real threat from McLaren’s Jenson Button, who finished a strong runner-up.

Webber, meanwhile, was unfortunate to lose his KERS system immediately prior to Sunday’s race, meaning he was swamped by his rivals off the start, although the gritty Australian nevertheless battled back for an impressive fourth at the flag.

And Horner believes that KERS is not proving to be the key differential between cars that many expected, instead handing that accolade to the new high-wear Pirelli tyres, which have increased the amount of pit stops drivers are required to make.

“In the end the tyres were the biggest performance differentiator, as we saw,” Horner added.

One of the overlooked facts of the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend was the staggering 2.7-second tyre change which the Red Bull crew achieved in turning around Vettel for one of his routine pit stops.

Horner maintains it is the pursuit of these fractions of a second — in addition to the glory of winning — which is keeping motivation high.

“They’re all just going that extra yard and it’s paying dividends,” said Horner.