Red Bull Still Confused About Max Verstappen’s Struggles With RB19 in Bahrain As No Updates Were Made

Tanish Chachra | 11/03/2023
Red Bull Still Confused About Max Verstappen's Struggles With RB19 in Bahrain As No Updates Were Made

During the pre-season testing, Max Verstappen reported some driveability issues in his brand-new RB 19 for the 2023 season. But coming into the Grand Prix weekend, the current world champions were fine and won the season’s first race seamlessly.

However, it has left the bosses at Red Bull confused. They cannot figure out what caused the car to be so difficult to drive right before the season start.

Red Bull chief Helmut Marko claims that the team drove with the same setup. However, on the same track, the car behaved differently, and they have been unable to wrap their heads around it since then.

Also read: Lewis Hamilton Is Confident Max Verstappen Will Win His Third Title In 2023

Red Bull wants to figure it out soon

Marko confirms that his side was not the only one who faced a similar issue. Everyone observed it, but apparently, Red Bull was the biggest victim. Therefore, his side is troubleshooting the issue at hand.

“We don’t know why, we still don’t understand it to this day. So we have to find out what happened there. It happened to other teams too, but it was massive for us. There was nothing, no upgrades or anything else, everything was still the same,” said Marko.

The former Austrian race driver added that the whole paradigm with the new tires is so fragile that anything off could have triggered. Nevertheless, he relies on his reliable army of engineers to locate the issue.

If Charles Leclerc hadn’t retired

Red Bull won the last race in a very dominant fashion. Fernando Alonso was the only non-Red Bull driver to be on the podium. Though, Sergio Perez Perez would disagree. And even Alonso had a 38-second gap against Verstappen.

When asked Marko if he could foresee his team winning in such a dominant fashion, he claimed he did, as their performances on Friday only hinted at that.

In the last race, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc saw an unprecedented technical issue in his car and had to retire. Marko believes that had Leclerc remained in the race; things could have been in the mix.

Nevertheless, going into Saudi Arabia, Red Bull is once again considered the favorite. However, Verstappen isn’t believing that and feels it would be more competitive in Jeddah to race.

Also read: Toto Wolff Confirms W14’s Development Restricted by $135 Million Budget Cap

Post Edited By: Tanish Chachra
Helmut Marko Red Bull

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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