Red Bull struggles in Bahrain: Yuki Tsunoda’s first points and Max Verstappen’s disappointment. Yuki Tsunoda earns his first points for Red Bull in Bahrain.

In Bahrain, the Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda, who has been with the team for only two weekends, earned his first two career points as a Red Bull driver. Seen from this perspective, it seems like a great achievement. However, it’s a pity that, on one hand, the team might think they’ve found the right path in terms of a second driver (progress is visible, but it needs to be confirmed in the upcoming races, one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and a ninth place is still just a ninth place). On the other hand, Max Verstappen and the team, in general, had a truly poor weekend by the standard they’ve accustomed us to.

The Milton Keynes-based team continues to prove the theory that when the car is competitive, Max can enhance its qualities and perform at an exceptional level, while the second driver struggles. When the overall performance of the car drops, the performances of both drivers tend to converge.

Yuki, therefore, could have, unlike Liam Lawson, taken advantage of this situation by unexpectedly making it into Q3 in Sakhir (until then, his performances didn’t seem on par, especially as Yuki was almost nine-tenths behind the four-time world champion) and then finishing in the points on Sunday.

A deep issue… Max Verstappen in sixth and Yuki Tsunoda in ninth, even though both are in the points, are not convincing enough reasons for celebration. Unfortunately, Red Bull has been suffering from a deep issue over the last 12 months, and we define it this way because of its complexity. Yuki was the only positive aspect in Bahrain, and it’s clear the team would prefer weekends like Japan, where Max wins and the other driver is out of the points, rather than settling for crumbs with both in the points. It would be even better if both ended up on the podium, but that scenario seems like a utopia at the moment.

Something strange is happening within the team. Seeing the mechanics make blatant mistakes in pit stops, an area where they have been the standard of excellence in our beloved sport for years, seems to be a clear and unmistakable symptom.