Red Bull team principal Christian Horner showcased his concern regarding their power unit’s durability problem in the first two races.
The 2022 F1 season is now well and truly underway. So far, it seems like that the two strongest teams of this year are going to be Ferrari and Red Bull.
Both have gone through some major changes over the winter break, with Ferrari working hard on developing a new engine ahead of the freeze. Red Bull on the other hand, parted ways with Honda and are now officially operating with the ‘Red Bull Powertrain Unit’.
While the Milton-Keynes team are running a very powerful engine, in terms of durability they have suffered. In the first race of the season in Bahrain, three of the four RBPT cars had to be retired due to engine issues.
Subsequently, in Saudi Arabia last weekend, both AlphaTauri drivers Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda faced problems. Gasly lost drive of his car during the FP3 session but Tsunoda’s problems were bigger.
The Japanese driver had to change his power-unit after facing problems on Friday. Still, right before the start of the GP on Sunday, he pulled over to side, letting his team know, that he too had lost drive.
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Reliability may act as an Achilles heel to an otherwise strong Red Bull engine
In terms of raw pace, the Red Bull engine seems incredibly strong. However, if the power unit keeps showing reliability problems, it may affect the team’s chances at winning the Title.
“Of course, we’re concerned about it,” Christian Horner said. “But I think, first, we have to understand what it is.”
“So I think once all the strip-down has been done. And we understand what the issue is then, hopefully, fixes can be put in place.”
AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost too shares the concerns. This is particularly because it’s his team that has faced more issues, even though they use the same engine as their parent team.
“The oil pressure dropped and, therefore, we decided to stop,” Tost said when talking about Tsunoda not starting the Saudi Arabian GP.
“We don’t know yet whether we can use this engine or not again. Or what is exactly broken, we have to investigate. I want to find out the reason why we are struggling with reliability. Because Red Bull aren’t having any problem.”
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