Christian Horner has confirmed that the reasons for Red Bull’s retirements in the 2022 F1 season are all unrelated to each other.
After three races in the year, Red Bull have a 50% finishing rate, having been plagued by reliability issues. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were both compelled to retire just before the checkered flag fell in Bahrain.
Verstappen suffered his second DNF of the season on lap 39 of the Australian GP. Both those results cost the reigning world champion 36 points in total, jeopardizing his title defense in the process.
Speaking in a joint media interaction session after the race at Albert Park, Horner shed light on the matter by saying:
“It was that we filled the car with hydraulic fluid before the race. But I don’t think it’s related to this issue. It’s obviously frustrating to have a DNF with this problem. I think the other one would have been OK.”
Red Bull’s sister team AlphaTauri also had trouble with reliability. Pierre Gasly was forced to retire in the season opener in Bahrain, while his teammate Yuki Tsunoda was unable to even start the Saudi Arabian GP.
Horner continued:
“Across the two teams, we’ve seen a few issues, and they’ve all been independent – none of them have been related. We need to understand those and address them quickly. Because, even on a day that we weren’t as quick as Ferrari, a guaranteed second place… for Max [Verstappen]we’ve given up 36 points [so far this season].” “For the team, we’ve given up 50 points. When you look at both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships, [they would] be a lot different – but there’s still a huge percentage of the championship still to run. We need to get on top of these issues quickly.”
“It’s more important to finish races” – Red Bull’s Max Verstappen frustrated after falling ‘miles behind’ Charles Leclerc in 2022 title fight
Max Verstappen cut a frustrating figure after being forced to retire from the 2022 F1 Australian GP in Melbourne.
He was in P2 behind eventual race winner Charles Leclerc when a fuel leak in his RB18 compelled him to pull to the side of the track.
During his interview with Sky Sports F1 after the race, Verstappen expressed his frustrations over the matter and said:
“We’re already miles behind, so I don’t even want to think about the championship fight at the moment. I think it’s more important to finish races.”
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“Today was in general just a bad day again. Not really having the pace, and just managing my tires to try and just bring it to the end, because it looked like quite an easy P2 anyway.”
With 20 races still to go, Red Bull will try and resurrect their hopes of putting up a fight against Ferrari. The team from Milton-Keynes will first focus on the Emilia Romagna GP coming up next in Imola.
Edited by Rachel Syiemlieh
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https://formulaone.news/red-bull/f1-news-as-a-driver-you-want-certainty
