Renault's Nick Heidfeld has admitted he is frustrated by the mileage he has lost out on due to reliability problems in pre-season testing.
At the start of his third test for the team since replacing Robert Kubica, Heidfeld completed just 20 laps on Tuesday morning before being sidelined by a cold. He said his lack of overall running is a concern, but expects the car's reliability issues to be ironed out in time for the first race in Australia.
"I'm not happy," Heidfeld admitted to journalists. "You are only happy if you don't have any problems. We have had too many, which cost us too much testing time, which is crucial this year with such limited running and new systems and new tyres. On the other side, the positive thing is that none of those problems look as if we cannot solve them before the first race."
He is also confident that upgrades will improve the car's performance this week.
"We already have some new parts on the car today; we have a new floor and a new rear wing," he said. "That's what I tried this morning. My feeling there was positive and we also tried some check runs to do some measurements, which we are still analysing, but everything looks like we assumed."
Like many in the paddock, Heidfeld suspects Red Bull is out in front at the moment and when asked if he was surprised by Mark Webber's headline times on Tuesday, he responded: "It's not surprising at all and I think they are still not showing everything. If you look at the sector times you see that they still have something in their pocket. I still think they are leading the pack at the moment. By how much, that is the question."
Heidfeld is aiming to be back in the car at the end of the week after a day's rest to recover from his cold.
"I'm just a bit ill, I did hope that it would be gone by now but it's just lasting a bit longer than I'd hoped," he said. "I don't feel good in the car. As we are here for four days anyway, I would prefer to rest today and tomorrow and do another one and a half days on Thursday and Friday."
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