Daniel Ricciardo is confident Red Bull will be a challenger in the season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix despite another day of problems during testing.
The West Australian kept a brave face on Thursday after completing just 39 laps over two sessions at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit, his Renault-powered RB10 dogged by more technical glitches.
Despite being garage-bound for a good part of four hours in the afternoon, Ricciardo managed to clock the championship-winning team's best time of the year - the day's seventh fastest.
"For me, behind the wheel, that was the best I've felt," the ever-smiling Ricciardo told reporters.
"The package seemed to be all coming together a bit better now. Obviously we still had some issues, but at least when the car was on track I think it was much more useful running for us today. That was a positive, definitely."
Only three days remain in the last pre-season test before round one at Melbourne's Albert Park, which begins on March 16.
Ricciardo will stay behind the wheel on Friday before handing over driving duties to teammate and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel on Saturday and Sunday.
"We are still confident we can be up there," Ricciardo added.
"It's clear that we are probably not going to go to Melbourne and dominate, but it's still early days."
Mexico's Sergio Perez took his Force India to top place on the time sheets, with a blistering one minute, 35.290 seconds.
Valtteri Bottas continued the early promise of Williams with the second-best time, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in a Ferrari, Mercedes' Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil in a Sauber and promising McLaren driver Kevin Magnussen.
"We really needed a good day to start this week and today we had it," said Perez after completing a marathon 105 laps.
"We managed to do a lot of laps, try several different compounds and mappings, and it's been a fantastic day in terms of learning about the car."
