Red Bull telemetry confirmed a fault that prevented Max Verstappen from being aggressive in the corners, but the mystery deepens as there was no failure in the Brembo system, which will be used again in the race. The Milton Keynes team spent the night investigating the RB21’s abnormal behavior.
Telemetry data confirms the issue that forced Max Verstappen to only seventh on the Bahrain GP starting grid: Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko simply described it as a braking problem that prevented the Dutchman from competing on equal footing with the RB21.
The Milton Keynes team is convinced that the four-time world champion could have significantly closed the half-second gap to Oscar Piastri, potentially securing a second-row start and setting the stage for a different race.
Tomorrow, Max will try to fight back starting one spot behind Lando Norris, but Helmut Marko expressed frustration, as expectations had been different… “It went worse than expected because we changed some things on the car that we thought would be improvements, but suddenly a braking issue appeared,” Helmut explained after qualifying. “It was a serious problem, we saw it in the data, but we still haven’t understood where it came from.”
The Red Bull advisor added that Yuki Tsunoda, who qualified tenth, had no such issues. “The problem was only seen on Max’s car,” he clarified.
Team radio captured Max repeatedly complaining about the brakes, but an initial investigation suggests that the Brembo system was not to blame, as Verstappen will race with the same hardware he used in qualifying.
So, what could have made braking so difficult for the four-time world champion? Most likely, as had already happened at McLaren, the issue may stem from the car’s hydraulic system, which also manages the brake-by-wire system — this integrates braking force with the kinetic energy recovery used to charge the MGU-K during engine lift-off, balancing both systems so the driver hardly notices their interaction.
It’s also possible that Red Bull may have “played” with tyre pressures after Pirelli reduced the rear pressure by 0.5 PSI to increase the contact patch, and Max may have found himself with a car that slid more when maximum grip was needed. We’ll get the answers in the race…
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