Sakhir- The technical experts of the Red Bull F1 team will thoroughly probe Sunday’s double retirement by its drivers from the Bahrain Grand Prix as the initial investigation into problems with the steering and power unit proved inconclusive.
With reigning World Drivers’ Champion Max Verstappen leading their charge, Red Bull were expecting to start the 2022 season with a big haul of points in the season-opener in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
However, their hopes were dashed when Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez were forced to retire three laps from the end of the race at the Bahrain International Circuit here on Sunday.
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner said they were not sure what the issue with both the cars was.
“It looks like a similar issue on both cars. We don’t know exactly what it is yet, whether it’s a lift pump, whether it’s a collector or something along those lines, but we’ve got to get into it and understand exactly what caused it,” Horner told Sky Sports F1 after Sunday’s race.
“The steering issue [on Max’s car] was when the car got dropped on the final stop, we think it tweaked a track rod, so that’s why it was slightly different left to right,” he said.
“It was a brutal finish to that race for us,” added Horner. “What looked like a decent haul of points for us evaporated in the last couple of laps there.”
The double whammy has left Red Bull’s technical staff scrambling for solutions as they would like to resolve the issue before the next race in Saudi Arabia.
Things were looking good for Red Bull before all hell broke loose with Verstappen first to retire.
Verstappen had fought valiantly with eventual-winner Charles Leclerc of Ferrari for much of the race and seemed to be settling for the second position when he started to complain of both steering and power unit issues on his car.
The Dutch driver was passed by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on Lap 54 and eventually retired from the race. His teammate Sergio Perez then compounded Red Bull’s woes by spinning into retirement at Turn 1 of Final Lap, capping a miserable day for the team.
Extremely painful: Verstappen
“I mean, what happened at the end is obviously very frustrating, but of course before that, quite a few issues,” said Verstappen on Sunday night. “First of all the balance was off. I didn’t have the same feeling as on Friday on the long runs, so that was a bit disappointing.
“Then suddenly my steering, I don’t know what happened to that, it was just completely locked and the faster I was going, I could barely steer. So it was not easy on the restart to defend from Carlos (Sainz).
“But then I was still in second with that big issue so you think, okay, with all these issues that I’ve had today, second would be a good result. And then suddenly I had to retire, everything just switched off. It looked like a fuel pump or issue, there was no fuel coming to the engine. Of course these things, you don’t want them to happen and it’s very painful for the team as well that both cars retired. We need to look into everything,” Verstappen was quoted as saying by f1.com.
The reigning World Drivers’ Champion said what was more disappointing for him was that they did score zero points at Bahrain.
“I think at the end what is the biggest problem is that we scored zero points with a competitive car. And of course, on the days when you have tiny issues or you’re not entirely happy with the balance, you have to consolidate and score points and what we did today is of course extremely painful.”
Perez, too, was understandably downbeat, after losing the chance to snatch a podium in Verstappen’s absence – with the Mexican’s retirement handing P3 to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
“I was very unfortunate,” said Perez. “I lost the engine, just locked the rears completely and there was nothing I could do. It looks like a very similar problem to what Max had.”
With just one week’s time before the next race in Jaddah, both Verstappen and Perez will be hoping that the team will manage to put things in order for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
–IANS