Red Bull to bring new RB8 to Australia

Christian Horner has denied reports Red Bull is considering taking the ’old’ specification of its 2012 car, the RB8, to Melbourne.

The reigning world champions arguably set the early pace this winter, but apparently struggled once a big package of upgrades - essentially a ’B’ chassis - was brought to the final Barcelona test.

Sebastian Vettel’s final day of running was dismissed by team advisor Dr Helmut Marko as no less than "shit", ramping up speculation the team might revert to the initial RB8 specification.

But team boss Horner told BBC radio: "It’s amazing how these things get construed.

"Those (Barcelona) upgrades seem to be working ok and they’ll certainly be on the car in Australia in ten days’ time."