Red Bull boss Christian Horner admits the team are "chasing issues" with the RB15.
After a strong first weekend in Australia, Bahrain proved much more difficult as problems optimising tyre performance left them watching over their shoulder at the midfield rather than challenging for victory.
Max Verstappen would salvage fourth as a result of Ferrari's capitulation and would have claimed third without the late Safety Car, but that is only a slight comfort to Horner who knows they have work to do.
“It’s a tricky car at the moment,” he was quoted by PlanetF1. “Our operating window looks quite narrow and Max has coped with that extremely well.
“It’s been harder for Pierre. That will come, I’m sure.
“When you’re chasing issues like this and you’re moving a problem around, it usually points the finger in other areas.
“We’ve got a lot of good data from this weekend and are starting to understand areas we need to be focusing on.”
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The Red Bull chief rejected any complaints about the Honda engine, suggesting it "continues to make good progress" and pointed to Ferrari as a reason to be optimistic.
“Ferrari look like they’ve selected another gear," he said. “It’s been enormously impressive, their straight-line performance.
“Trying to understand where are our strengths/weaknesses [lie compared] to Ferrari here is quite important.
“Once you get into a window, particularly with these tyres… they looked a different team to two weeks ago and vice versa with Mercedes.
“It’s just understanding what the magic password is.”
To that end, Horner admitted this week's test was "perfect timing" to conduct crucial work and Verstappen did just that topping the timesheet on Tuesday.
