Christian Horner explains reason behind Red Bull’s slow pit stops in Bahrain. Christian Horner has explained what caused delays during the pit stops of Verstappen and Tsunoda..

In recent years, Red Bull has stood out for the speed of its pit stops. This year, however, something no longer seems to be working as it used to. In the first four races of the F1 World Championship, the team that completed the fastest pit stops wasn’t Red Bull, but Ferrari. The Bahrain GP weekend was especially difficult for Red Bull, made worse by issues during the stops of Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda. Christian Horner explained the reason behind the time lost in the pits.

Both Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda lost valuable seconds and key positions during their stops. The slow pit stops and a car that was difficult to handle—especially under braking—prevented the Red Bull drivers from being truly competitive.

The reason
After the race, Christian Horner explained the incident to the media: “Max came in for the first stop and the light did nothing. The system is actually very simple. At first, we thought maybe one of the mechanics hadn’t pressed the button hard enough, and the other stop was within a minute. Then it happened again, and at that point, we went to manual control and a chief mechanic released the car.” – he pointed out.

If it wasn’t human error, what caused the traffic light malfunction? Horner stated: “I heard there was some sort of wiring or electrical issue with the gantries. It’s something I’ve never seen before. I mean, the drivers follow the lights, and the actual stops were quite good—one of them was two seconds.”

For both Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda, the pit lane light remained either red or flashing orange, and never turned green. This prevented the Red Bull drivers from rejoining the track promptly at the end of their pit stops. It’s a problem that the Milton Keynes team will certainly investigate further to avoid any recurrence in future races.