In a race in which the Red Bull drivers started from second and fourth position, the great objective of the energy drinks team was to fight for a double podium that in the last laps turned into a double retirement.
Max Verstappen battled with Charles Leclerc for several laps for victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix, however he ended up accepting that second position was his destiny. What nobody expected was that with less than five laps to go, his Honda engine forced him to abandon and go from adding 18 points to 0.
Something similar happened to Sergio Pérez, who after a race in which he remained fourth, several seconds from the third and last position on the podium, saw his Honda engine cut out when he was third due to the abandonment of his teammate, thus confirming the double retirement for the Red Bull team in the first race of the 2022 Formula 1 season.
Analyzing the team’s disaster after the race, Christian Horner explained the problems and was concerned: “Obviously it is very disappointing to lose the opportunity to get a podium today. It is suspicious that the breakdowns are related to each other, it seems that it could be a problem within of the fuel system. It’s very disappointing to lose 30 points.”
“I think the silver lining for us is that we had a very competitive car, but I think we didn’t have the pace of Charles [Leclerc] today. Looking at it from a season perspective, we need to look at the problem, whatever it is, and come back. stronger next weekend.
With just a few days to go before the Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia, this is a totally unexpected problem for Red Bull . However, they believe that Verstappen ‘s power steering failure is unrelated to the problems that led to the withdrawal of the two RB18s.
“It’s not related (to the engine problem). The steering thing was because after the last stop the steering arm seemed to bend. That’s why it started to behave slightly differently.”
Referring to the disappointment and frustration shown by Verstappen , he added: “Of course he is disappointed. We had had a good race up to that point and were in a comfortable second place. Ferrari was a bit quicker than us today. They have shown during the winter that they are very fast. They have confirmed it today, but we have tried”.
