Red Bull tonight confirmed that the problem Sebastian Vettel suffered during today's Bahrain Grand Prix was a spark plug failure as opposed to a problem with the exhaust on his car.

The German was leading Fernando Alonso by what seemed a comfortable margin when, around 15 laps from the end of the race, he appeared to suffer a problem which caused his car to slow at the end of the main straight.

Alonso and Massa made short work of the German who subsequently lost a further place to Lewis Hamilton. Asked if they could solve his problem, Vettel was told by his crew that he had suffered a "failed exhaust" and that nothing could be done about it.

Although his lap times fluctuated over the course of the remainder of the race, the German did well to hold on to fourth place, especially as both Mercedes cars were closing in.

"It's a pity today," said the German at the end of the race. "It was positive all weekend, except for the exhaust failure. About 15 laps from the end, you could see my lap times were getting slower. Luckily we could continue but we should have won today."

The team subsequently issued a statement which read: "Our earlier race report stated that Sebastian Vettel's loss of power on lap 33 of the Bahrain Grand Prix was due to an exhaust problem. However, further investigations by the team have proven that the loss of power was actually due to a spark plug failure and not the exhaust."

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