Max Verstappen’s title defense started in the worst possible way this Sunday at the Sakhir International Circuit, where the Dutchman walked away empty-handed.
Verstappen seemed destined to have to settle for second after failing to overtake Charles Leclerc, but with two laps to go his car began to run out of power and he barely made it to the pitlane to retire.
Previously, the 2021 champion had said on the radio that he had problems with the direction of the car and, at the time of retirement, he thought that the problem was in the battery.
His teammate, Sergio Pérez, also had an engine problem that blocked his rear axle and caused him to spin in the first corner of the circuit, thus ending the Red Bull team’s scoreless after the first race of the race. 2022 Formula 1 season.
In Red Bull they believe that their two drivers suffered a similar problem with the fuel pump, which caused the combustion engine to be unable to feed with the necessary amount, causing various breakdowns.
“It’s not that the steering wheel felt heavy, it was almost impossible to handle and the faster I went I felt the slower the movement,” Verstappen began to explain, with a lot of frustration.
“That’s why my restart was really bad. I wanted to go full throttle but I couldn’t because [the steering wheel] was stuck, so it was really hard. We had to deal with a lot of different issues and of course this is not what you want it to happen.”
The problems for Verstappen meant the worst possible finish to a weekend that had started very well and ended very badly, as he started with the fastest time on Friday, but was later outclassed in the duel for pole with Leclerc , and he was also being beaten in the race by the Monegasque before having to retire.
“The pace wasn’t amazing either and I think the balance wasn’t as good as it was on Friday for some reason that we have to understand,” he said before asking the team for answers: “There are a lot of things to look at, problems can always come up and there can be a abandonment. But at this level, after having so much information with the engines and so on, it shouldn’t happen, unfortunately.”
“We’ve already lost a lot of points this race weekend, so that’s not good. I know one retirement isn’t over, but I would have preferred to have at least 18 points,” a visibly defeated Verstappen lamented.
