Christian Horner has revealed more about Max Verstappen 's reaction after the Formula 1 champion suffered the worst possible start to his title defence.
The Dutchman looked good for a hefty points haul at the Bahrain Grand Prix. After qualifying in second, he stayed on the tail of eventual winner Charles Leclerc throughout the majority of the race and appeared to be destined for a place on the podium.
However, fate had different plans for the Red Bull star who was thwarted by a mechanical problem. He came out of the pits for a third time complaining of steering issues, which were later revealed to be because of a track rod which had been moved while his tyres were being changed.
But the issue which proved fatal was another thing entirely, as suddenly Verstappen slowed up on the track and retired his car with just two laps to go. To make matters worse for the team, Sergio Perez suffered a similar problem on the final lap which saw the team earn no points on the opening weekend of the season.
"A brutal finish to that race for us. What looked like a decent haul of points suddenly evaporated in the last couple of laps there," Horner told Sky Sports after the race. "It looks a similar issue on both cars – we don't know exactly what it is yet... but we've got to get into it and figure out exactly what has caused it."
Asked by Damon Hill what Verstappen's reaction in the garage had been, the Red Bull boss added: "Of course he was disappointed, when you are looking at a comfortable second place, and we'd had a pretty decent run up until then.
"I think Ferrari were just that little bit quicker than us today. They've demonstrated over the winter they've been very quick. We gave it a shot and it's frustrating. Brutal for Sergio on the last lap – he held up Lewis [Hamilton] into turn one and then unfortunately the issue – nothing he could do."
While those mechanical failures meant Red Bull are not yet on the board in the standings, Ferrari ensured maximum points with a one-two and fastest lap for Leclerc, while Mercedes took advantage to finish third and fourth. Points were also scored by the likes of Haas, Alfa Romeo, Alpine and AlphaTauri, but Horner was keen to look on the bright side.
"Zero points is tough for us, but the positive we can take is that we had a competitive car and we were fighting for the race win for most of that race," he said. "We have to get on top of these issues quickly, but it's a long, long season with 23 races. We've got to get this behind us and get stuck into the next event."
