Max Verstappen calls on Red Bull to ‘investigate’ RB21 after Bahrain misery
Max Verstappen raised some serious questions about the RB12's drivability after an underwhelming qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Perplexed by inconsistent grip and braking issues, the reigning champion called upon the Milton Keynes outfit to review the car's setup.
On Saturday, April 12, Verstappen suffered a major lockup during his first push lap, forcing him to pit for a second set of softs to survive Q1. The Dutchman's lap times remained off the pace as he advanced to Q3 at the bottom of the time sheets. Dealing with more understeer and braking instability, he finished the session outside the top five at seventh.
Talking to the media post-qualifying, Verstappen opened up about his struggles with the RB21.
"For whatever reason I’ve been struggling with the brakes, feeling retardation, so it’s something that we need to investigate. And then general grip, I guess, throughout the lap, [it was] quite inconsistent, and then of course that makes it very hard to understand what you actually need from the car when, for whatever reason, we can’t seem to make the tyres work," he said.
He added,
"So we have tried a lot, honestly, with the set-up – left, right, up and down! But unfortunately nothing really gave us a clear answer, so that is of course a bit of a shame.”
Max Verstappen is set to start Sunday's race one spot behind his championship rival Lando Norris. However, McLaren's Oscar Piastri is poised to challenge his teammate's lead with a pole position. Meanwhile, Reb Bull's Yuki Tsunoda overcame his qualifying woes, securing a spot in Q3 at tenth.
Red Bull identify cause of Max Verstappen's struggles with the RB21
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko provided probable cause for Max Verstappen's struggles during the fourth race of the Formula 1 season. He pointed to changing temperatures in the Sakhir International circuit as a key factor in Verstappen's pace gap with Lando Norris.
After Friday's practice sessions, Marko spoke to Sky Sports Germany and discussed the RB21's troubles.
"When the temperature rises, you slide more. One thing leads to another. Strangely enough, the tires recovered in between. At one moment we were equal to Lando Norris, at the other moment we were one to one and a half seconds behind," he said.
After sitting out of FP1 to give way to Red Bull development driver Ayumu Iwasa, Max Verstappen finished around eight tenths off the lead pace in FP2. As RBR adjusted their setup overnight, Saturday's practice session proved to be a further step back, as Verstappen ran 1.3 seconds off the session leader Oscar Piastri.
In contrast, Yuki Tsunoda struggled with consistency as he remained a permanent fixture among the backmarkers, except for a ninth place finish in FP1.