Max Verstappen’s anger after his retirement has started a series of pessimistic statements at Red Bull, which saw Ferrari unattainable at Albert Park. Reliability is a big concern for the Anglo-Austrian team.
When you play the World Cup against a very even opponent, you need to maximize your opportunities and potential as much as possible. Red Bull and Max Verstappen were able to do it in 2021 and the prize was the drivers’ title for the Dutchman.
However, this year the dispute with Ferrari and Charles Leclerc has not started as expected. And it is that, although Max Verstappen has won one of the three races played, he has left in the other two and sees the Monegasque from sixth position in the championship and 46 points behind.
“It’s desperately frustrating, Ferrari and Leclerc were in their own league”
After his retirement, Verstappen made clear his frustration with the car and the team, but perhaps it was not expected that the rest of the Red Bull components were also pessimistic.
Reliability is a problem, but it’s not the only one
Christian Horner understands that his star driver was genuinely upset by Australia’s withdrawal, admitting that “his frustration is totally understandable. It was a really disappointing result not to finish the race. We need to fix it. We cannot accept dropouts. We need to understand what the problem is and address it.”.
It is not the first time that Red Bull has had a mechanical problem, something that has weighed heavily on the team at the start of the season. However, the director of the Anglo-Austrian training says that these are not interrelated problems.
We analyze the Australian Grand Prix on our Twitch channel.
“I don’t think it’s related to the engine and each fault has been independent of the rest.. It could be a fuel issue, but we need to get the car back and see what exactly happened. We don’t have the data, we don’t have the information,” Horner admitted after Sunday’s race.
“I’d rather fix a fast car than try to make a slow and reliable one fast”he said, though. “We have things on the way that I think will help. Now we’re back in Europe and we need to put this behind us, deal with it and move on.”
However, poor reliability is not the only problem facing Red Bull, which was run over by Ferrari in Australia.
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“It’s desperately frustrating. We didn’t have the pace to compete with Charles today, they were in their own league.”Horner acknowledges. “It would be fair to say that Max was not happy all weekend and you can see the front tires graining quite quickly in the race. That is usually the sign that you have not achieved the necessary balance.
“When your car is balanced, you don’t have those problems. He had no blisters, he had no granules. Conditions were slightly different compared to Friday, but we expected to be much closer to Ferrari on pace and they were untouchable. So we should congratulate them, but we still have work to do, “reiterates Horner.
The race pace, the weight of the car…
Sergio Perez He also offered his opinion about what was seen in Australia, a race in which he got second place after an intense fight with the Mercedes and after the abandonment of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen.
“Previously, we have been very close in qualifying and the race. Even on Saturday I felt like we were a little closer than we showed. But in the race they were on another level, “acknowledges the Mexican.
“We got a few things wrong over the weekend and we were fighting more with Mercedes than Ferrari, so the pace was not what we wanted, but we will work on it.
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“Sector 3 was really weak for us,” says Perez of the slower, more technical section of the Australian circuit. «We had to reach many compromises, which affected us throughout the circuit. The balance of the car was too poor. We took a bit of a wrong direction with the car, so I think an analysis needs to be done.”
“The set-up of the two cars was a bit different, so there is also some analysis to do. I’m sure we will learn a lot from this weekend because it seems that we are a little more aggressive with the tires than Ferrari »says Perez
Helmut Marko Nor did he hide the concern that exists in Red Bull, also influencing what is a big problem for the RB18.
“Not only do we have these reliability issues, which are actually largely unknown to us. There is also the problem of weight. We are much heavier than Ferrari. It’s a difficult balancing act, even with the cost cap,” laments the Austrian.
“Tough times ahead. We were surprised by how fast Ferrari was today. They had to pay much less attention to the tires than we did. Ferrari was in its own league. Unfortunately, we were clearly behind, even though Pérez had a great race”, concluded Marko.