Bahrain Grand Prix: Red Bull’s “worst nightmare”
The first Grand Prix of the season had a rather unexpected outcome at Red Bull, with both of their cars forced to retire a few laps before the finish.
During almost the entire race, the Dutchman Max Verstappen closely followed the day’s leader, Charles Leclerc, even attacking several times. Although he failed to stay ahead of the Monegasque, the podium was still guaranteed.
His teammate at Red Bull, Sergio Pérez, also kept his position throughout. Fourth in the pack, he only had two laps left to resist Lewis Hamilton’s relentless attacks.
But two laps before the checkered flag, Max Verstappen’s RB18 drastically slows down. Despite complaining about a steering problem for a few laps, the driver had to make his way back to the pit and, as a result, abandon the race. One lap later, Sergio Pérez’s car suffered the same fate. In the midst of a battle with Hamilton, his engine locks up in the first turn, causing the RB18 to spin out. As a result, the team loses 30 points in this race, while Ferrari secures a one-two finish and Mercedes takes the podium.
Red Bull in a real nightmare
The team principal of the Austrian team, Christian Horner, has spoken out. “I don’t remember the last time this happened to us, but it’s obviously your worst nightmare,” he lamented. “It’s extremely disappointing, not just to lose a podium with Max, but also to lose one in the final lap with Checo [Perez]. For us, this race had a brutal ending. What seemed like a good points haul suddenly evaporated in the last two laps,” Horner regretted.
It is possible that both Red Bull cars experienced the same fuel pump failure, which made it impossible to supply fuel to the Honda combustion engines.
« We just need to bring back the cars, isolate the fuel system, and understand, because we know there was gasoline. It’s frustrating,” explained the British person. « We need to overcome this problem and fight again next weekend,” said ».
Any positive to take away from this Grand Prix?
However, the performance of the cars before this incident is encouraging.
« I think the positive aspect for us is that we had a very competitive car,” said Christian Horner. « I don’t think we had Charles’ pace today, but we had a great battle between Max and Charles. We were fighting for the win at different points during the race. It’s a very long season, with 23 races. We will manage to put that behind us and focus on the next event.
