Nightmare Bahrain
The Sakhir weekend turned out to be quite complicated for Red Bull, who, for the first time this season, scored points with both of its drivers, with Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda finishing 6th and 9th respectively. Difficulties were experienced both by the Milton Keynes-based team and its junior team, Racing Bulls, who failed to break into the top 10 during the Bahrain night race.
Forgettable start
A weekend that began uphill and ended without any significant improvements for Isack Hadjar, who had just finished 8th in Japan (a result that represented his first F1 points and the first points for Racing Bulls this season) but could only manage 13th in Sakhir: “The start wasn’t good because I lost four positions, and it felt like I wasn’t moving from the starting grid,” he explained. “I didn’t fully understand why, so we’ll need to review what happened. I believe the procedure was correct, but I turned the wheels, and that caused us to miss the correct racing line in the first lap. A better qualifying result might have changed our race, but overall, our pace and strategy were aggressive, and I believe this was the right way to go. Unfortunately, after the start, we were too far back, and that didn’t help us; the same goes for the Safety Car, which didn’t allow us to restart easily with the used hard tires. We’ll focus on the areas we missed here in Bahrain and aim to address them in the future.”
Too many contacts
Returning to Faenza doesn’t seem to have provided the necessary boost for Liam Lawson to move on from his brief and troubled stint with Red Bull, as the New Zealander finished 16th, still behind his teammate, and was even penalized with three penalty points: “The race was full of action. We had good pace, but we couldn’t take advantage of it, and the only way I could overtake was by braking pretty late. I didn’t intentionally touch anyone, but obviously, the stewards made their decision regarding the penalties, so we’ll need to review the incidents. It’s a shame we don’t have the results to show that we’re making progress as a team because the car was really fast in qualifying, and we didn’t get to show that. The car was also fast in the race, but obviously, starting from the back makes things difficult. It was a race that didn’t end in the best way.”
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