Mark Webber and his teammate David Coulthard have played down the fact that the Australian driver set the fastest lap of the day at Wednesday’s Jerez test.
Featuring its unique engine cover fin, the Renault-powered RB4 driven by 31-year-old Webber ended the particularly windy Spanish session atop the field of sixteen runners.
In a team statement, the Milton Keynes based camp said Webber had explored “the performance potential” of the Adrian Newey-penned machine, and described the fastest lap as “encouraging”.
The Swiss newspaper Blick quoted Webber as saying: “Clearly, we took a lot of fuel out.”
More than a second adrift in the sister RB4, Scottish teammate David Coulthard also warned observers not to read into Webber’s apparently rapid pace.
He said no-one should expect “anything different than McLaren or Ferrari to be setting the pace” when the circus gathers in Melbourne next month for the first race of 2008.
Coulthard told the Australian news agency AAP: “We know we’re not the quickest, we know we’re not the slowest and we know we’re more reliable than last year.”
Barcelona will play host to the final pre-season test later in February.
