Red Bull Racing faces an anxious wait ahead of its new car debut in Jerez next week with early forecasts suggesting the second pre-season F1 test could be hit by rain.
The British team chose to skip the first F1 test at Valencia earlier this week to give itself more development time for the new RB6 car – which many believe will be a strong contender for the World Championship this year. Red Bull was confident that the remaining 12 days of testing scheduled before the first race would be plenty for it to get the most out of the RB6. However, early weather forecasts for Jerez suggest that rain could blight some, if not all, of the four day test – which could severely limit useful track time.
If Jerez is a wash-out, that would leave Red Bull Racing with only two more scheduled tests – at Jerez the following week and Barcelona at the end of this month – to get its car fully sorted prior to Bahrain.
Virgin Racing and Force India are the other teams that have scheduled next week's Jerez test to be the first outing with their new cars.