Red Bull are said to have ‘two or three problems’ according to advisor Helmut Marko, amid a number of reliability issues for world champion Max Verstappen. Verstappen has had a stop-start beginning to his campaign having won one race, but failing to finish in his two other outings either side.
Verstappen was dealt a blow on the opening day of the season when competing at the front late on in the Bahrain Grand Prix, after a failure in his car forced him to retire. One week later though, the Dutchman was back to his best after securing his first victory of the season in Saudi Arabia.
However, calamity struck once more on Sunday in Australia, as yet another issue with his Red Bull car forced him to pull out of the race part way through after securing second spot on the grid in qualifying.
Amid Verstappen’s woes, advisor Marko admitted there are still problems to fix for the Milton Keynes-based setup. He told Verus TV: “There are two or maybe three different things at play. Firstly, the reliability problems, which we hardly had last year, but the lag behind Ferrari was also alarming today.
“They just controlled the pace and did that without graining. If Max stepped on, Leclerc could react easily. We were negatively surprised by the speed of Ferrari. They had almost no graining and we already had after a few laps. Ferrari can find a good balance with the car more easily. And then, of course, there is the weight of the car.”
Another key issue that is said to be hampering Red Bull’s battle against Ferrari is the weight of the car, with it reported to be one of the heaviest on the grid. Marko continued: “We are clearly heavier than the Ferrari.
“I think we have a weight handicap of about 10 kilograms. Converted to lap time, that equates to about three tenths per lap.” Whilst dropping weight off the car would seem logical, the team advisor admitted that such a change is not so simple, but did reveal an upgrade for next week’s race in Imola will help.
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“Lowering the weight is expensive. It’s, to start with, a financial issue and secondly it is also related to reliability, so it is a difficult split due to the budget ceiling. We are facing difficult times,” he added.
“We will indeed get an upgrade [for Imola]. If it functions as well as the first updates and if we can reduce the weight, we can put that package on a par with Ferrari. But more importantly, we solve the reliability problems. You can have a fast car but if you don’t get to the finish, it’s of no use.”
