Red Bull boss Christian Horner says the engine that blew up in the back of Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull at the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix is unlikely to salvageable.
Ricciardo's V6 Renault let go in dramatic fashion as he exited the final corner on the final lap to finish sixth, meaning he has now gone through three internal combustion engines in the first four races. Each driver can use just four for the season before incurring a penalty, although there is an agreement to have the allocation upped to five.
"All the fireworks went off and the engine felt like it needed to join in!" Horner said. "A fairly spectacular finish, it failed 200m before the line, but we had enough momentum to cross the line."
Asked if the engine could be used again, Horner said it would probably be made into a very expensive piece of furniture.
"I think that engine will be a coffee table in the future."
Ricciardo added: "Just out of the last corner it just went up in smoke. We'll have to see how severe it is, of course. It didn't look good but at least we got over the line and consolidated a pretty lonely sixth today but I felt it was all we could do.
"I think through the corners we're more or less there, we're probably just losing time down the straights at the moment. The chassis is working better, I think the weekend went more productively for us so we move on to Europe, a few more updates and try to get this bad boy further up the grid."
Horner agreed that straight-line speed is still where the RB11 is lacking.
"We are definitely making progress with the car. This is probably our most competitive weekend. The problem is we are running the car in such a compromised state that we are not in an optimum window with the car. Our top speeds are down, then you end up trimming wing out to try and get somewhere sensible, then that hampers things like tyre warm-up and downforce. We are not in a window with the car where we want to be, but made quite significant progress."