The World Cup has not started in the best way for the reigning champion. And it is that despite his victory in the second round of the year, in Saudi Arabia, Verstappen ‘s other two results at this start of the season are two retirements due to Red Bull failures.
After the KO that stole the podium in the last laps of the Bahrain GP that opened the course, Verstappen left this Sunday in Australia when he was comfortably second. No longer able to catch up with Charles Leclerc (with whom he had a brief battle during the restart after the Safety Car ), he was on his way to minimizing damage with second position, when with 19 laps to go his car failed.
“Stop, stop, if possible in a marshal area where there is a fire extinguisher! And get out of the car!” His engineer announced at the start of lap 39 (of 58). On the main straight, the Red Bull driver began to lose pace and on arrival at the first chicane, the Dutchman had to park the car at turn 2, as requested.
Visibly affected, Verstappen exclaimed on the radio “I smell a strange fluid, everything is screwed”, and did not remove his helmet until he reached the garage.
That caused a period of Virtual Safety Car that did not last long and that, beyond Fernando Alonso’s stop, did not change things much.
The reliability of Red Bull (who suffered a double KO in the Bahrain GP) this season is far from what has been shown in recent years, and after learning of the abandonment of his teammate, Pérez went to the radio worried to ask what the problem had been. suffered Verstappen.
To put it in context, in the last 31 races Verstappen had only suffered retirements due to accidents or tire blowouts. At Red Bull, and especially in the Dutch driver’s garage, there will be a logical concern. Although the world championship is long, Max Verstappen leaves Australia 46 points behind Leclerc, and falls to sixth position after three races, behind his teammate Sergio Pérez.
