Red Bull hopes for KERS fix by Turkey

Red Bull will use the three-week break before F1’s next outing in Turkey to get to the bottom of reliability problems.

Sebastian Vettel won the opening two races of 2011 from pole but finished second in Shanghai, with his RB7 and particularly the sister one driven by teammate Mark Webber regularly suffering from malfunctioning energy-recovery KERS systems.

Team consultant Helmut Marko told Germany’s Focus publication that a problem had contributed to Vettel dropping to third from pole at the start of the Chinese grand prix.

"At the start his KERS was working only partially," said the Austrian, who said there is no guarantee a final remedy will be in place by Istanbul next month.

A more optimistic team boss Christian Horner told the BBC: "We need to improve it and have got three weeks to make sure we have it available on every lap of the races."

Another problem encountered by Vettel in China was his communication with the pitwall. The German was spotted adjusting the drinking straw in his helmet just prior to the start.

"Maybe some water from the drinking system got in the microphone," Horner speculated to the Austrian press.