Racing Bulls deliver early verdict on new Red Bull engine

Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane has praised the new Red Bull power unit, admitting the team is “pleasantly surprised” by its performance.

Red Bull has fielded its own power unit this year for the first time, built in collaboration with Ford.

With the units being supplied to both Red Bull-owned teams, no major issues have been reported during the Barcelona shakedown event this week

Racing Bulls completed its running on Thursday and is now looking ahead to its next on-track venture, which will be the pre-season test in Bahrain.

Permane commended the job carried out by Red Bull and its new power unit department as it allowed Racing Bulls to enjoy a largely uninterrupted shakedown.

“A huge learning curve for us, a new power unit manufacturers Red Bull Powertrains with Ford, their partner, have done an incredible job.

“The engine, the whole power unit has run very, very reliably. I won’t say we were expecting problems, but we've been pleasantly surprised with how well things have gone.

“It’s enabled us to just get on and do our program, and the engine guys have been doing stuff in the background, lots of tests and things like that.”

Racing Bulls, like the rest of the teams, has six days of testing left to complete ahead of the season-opening round in Melbourne.

Casting a look at the upcoming Bahrain test, Permane said: “We're just excited to get there. We're ready to go.

“Three good days here, plenty of mileage, and we'll go there with a very full program for those, those two three-day tests.”