Adapted from GMM
Flavio Briatore has issued a sober warning to Red Bull's rivals after the 2011 season opener.
"You don't recover all those tenths in two months," the former Renault team boss told La Politica. "Half a second in formula one is huge. Red Bull are very well financed so I see it hard for them (the others) to play catch-up."
Others in the paddock are similarly pessimistic, like Mercedes' Nico Rosberg, who when asked by Bild newspaper if anyone can threaten Red Bull soon simply answered: "Nein (no)."
Yet McLaren and Ferrari are more confident, with the British team's boss Martin Whitmarsh insisting that the MP4-26 made a one-second improvement in pace in the two weeks before Melbourne.
"If we make as much progress in the next ten days as in the last ten, it'll be easy, won't it?" he joked to The Independent newspaper.
Team boss Stefano Domenicali said a problem of too little front downforce, which affected the balance of the car and its ability to preserve the Pirelli tires, has been identified.
"We need to understand why we did not see on the track what we could see on paper. But we must be realistic that if Red Bull confirm their pace, the gap cannot be recovered in Malaysia," he is quoted by La Stampa newspaper.
Fernando Alonso thinks Melbourne might have been a one-off. "We did something wrong, because all winter we were a second ahead of Toro Rosso, Sauber and Renault, and today we were fighting to beat them," he told La Sexta.
Flavio Briatore has issued a sober warning to Red Bull's rivals after the 2011 season opener.
"You don't recover all those tenths in two months," the former Renault team boss told La Politica. "Half a second in formula one is huge. Red Bull are very well financed so I see it hard for them (the others) to play catch-up."
Others in the paddock are similarly pessimistic, like Mercedes' Nico Rosberg, who when asked by Bild newspaper if anyone can threaten Red Bull soon simply answered: "Nein (no)."
Yet McLaren and Ferrari are more confident, with the British team's boss Martin Whitmarsh insisting that the MP4-26 made a one-second improvement in pace in the two weeks before Melbourne.
"If we make as much progress in the next ten days as in the last ten, it'll be easy, won't it?" he joked to The Independent newspaper.
Team boss Stefano Domenicali said a problem of too little front downforce, which affected the balance of the car and its ability to preserve the Pirelli tires, has been identified.
"We need to understand why we did not see on the track what we could see on paper. But we must be realistic that if Red Bull confirm their pace, the gap cannot be recovered in Malaysia," he is quoted by La Stampa newspaper.
Fernando Alonso thinks Melbourne might have been a one-off. "We did something wrong, because all winter we were a second ahead of Toro Rosso, Sauber and Renault, and today we were fighting to beat them," he told La Sexta.