Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has admitted that he is disappointed at suffering an “unpredictable” retirement at 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Having topped two of three practice sessions and Q2, Verstappen qualified second and found himself in a tough race battle against Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, in which he twice took the lead at Turn One on Laps 17 and 18 before Leclerc regained the lead at Turn Four on both laps.
Verstappen had a third attempt at the first corner on Lap 19 but locked up and ran wide, which led to various issues culminating in his retirement from the race on Lap 55.
Explaining exactly what went wrong for him in his first race as the reigning F1 champion despite feeling “quite competitive”, Verstappen commented: “The problems started initially with the brakes, they were overheating so I had to lift off and as a result I lost pace and had to let Charles go.
“After that, there were still a few issues with car balance and after my final pit stop my steering wheel was locked. That made it very difficult to drive so defending from Carlos at the re-start wasn’t easy.
“The final issue looked like a fuel system problem, which is why I had to retire and it was extremely painful for both our cars to DNF. We don’t know exactly what went wrong yet but we’ll definitely analyse the data and make sure we learn from it.”
Verstappen proceeded to remain optimistic of his title defence as he added: “At the end of the day, motorsport is unpredictable and these things can happen, this is race one, we have plenty more ahead of us.”
Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Perez meanwhile endured a slow start as he got overtaken by Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen, yet was able to quickly recover fourth position in the opening 10 laps before holding position until he benefitted from Verstappen’s retirement to go third.
Perez however suffered a lock-up of his power unit mid-corner during the first turn of the final lap which caused him to spin out of the race.
Reflecting on what went wrong after delivering a solid drive throughout the race, Perez said: “A couple of laps before the end I could feel I was losing power, we knew there was an issue and we knew what had happened with Max.
“I had a similar issue to his car, at the moment we think it was a fuel system problem and basically the engine just stopped. It is tough to digest but we are going to look for the positives and come back stronger next week in Jeddah.”
Perez also shared Verstappen’s optimism because there are currently 21 more races to come across the season, although a 23rd race is expected to be added to replace the Russian Grand Prix which was dropped during pre-season.
Providing a teasing view on his thoughts about the new season despite his opening race retirement, Perez teased: “Today is very disappointing and an unfortunate start to our season but a year is a long time in Formula 1 and we’re only one race in.”
Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner meanwhile added that the team is “hugely disappointed” with their first double retirement since 2020 Austrian GP, where reliability also wasn’t in their favour that particular race.
Horner also insisted that “a full investigation” will take place due to suspected links between the failures of both cars in terms of fuel systems, yet he felt positive that the RB18 is “competitive” despite lacking the race pace in Bahrain.
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