After a promising start for Red Bull with its own power unit in Australia, the race weekend in China proved to be a painful affair. Isack Hadjar did score his first points for the team, but his eighth place was hardly a reason for smiles in the paddock. Max Verstappen’s DNF overshadowed that and, perhaps even more so, the lack of pure pace throughout the weekend.
When Verstappen spoke to the media after his DNF, he took his time. The Dutchman explained his thoughts for eight minutes, which is quite long for a post-race media session in the pen. The vast majority of it focused on his dissatisfaction with the regulations.
The Red Bull driver said that fans who enjoy this on-track action “don’t understand how racing works” and that it still feels like Mario Kart. The fact that he can no longer enjoy F1 and that, in his view, the series is heading in the wrong direction bothers him the most.
According to Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, that criticism is closely linked to the current situation at Red Bull. Asked about Verstappen’s frustration, the Mercedes boss replied: “Max is really in a horror show. When you look at the onboard that he had in qualifying yesterday, that is just horrendous to drive. You can see that, but it’s not the same with many other teams.”
Verstappen himself, however, denies that his frustration with the regulations is related to the sporting situation – according to him, the two things should be separated. “Even if I was fighting at the front, I would still say the same.”
Two different problems behind Verstappen’s start issues
That said, it is clear that Red Bull encountered significant problems in China. Perhaps the most visible aspect of that was the start. In Australia, Verstappen already had a poor getaway, and in Shanghai it happened twice. In the sprint race he was 20th into Turn 1, while in the grand prix the Dutchman found himself in 16th.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: James Sutton / Formula 1 / Formula Motorsport Ltd via Getty Images
Ahead of the main race Verstappen joked: “It would help if I’m not 20th on lap one again.” He added that the problem should have been solved, but a few hours later that proved not to be the case.
“The start was a big problem, the same as yesterday,” the Dutchman admitted post-race. “I had no battery in Melbourne and here the two problems were the same [on both days]. I just have no power. As soon as I release the clutch, the engine is not there.”
Although the start has gone wrong on all three occasions so far, it should be possible for Red Bull to solve this on relatively short notice. Hadjar has already had good starts in the RB22, particularly the one in Melbourne.
A crucial difference compared to recent years
More worrying than the starts was the pure pace in Shanghai – or the lack of it. After the race Down Under, team principal Laurent Mekies estimated the gap to Mercedes at a full second per lap, adding that half of it came from the power unit and the other half from the chassis.
In China, the picture was different in two respects. First of all, the gap was larger – especially in terms of race pace – and secondly the balance between power unit and chassis was different. “I would say this weekend was, the biggest one was definitely the car,” Verstappen clarified after the race.
Red Bull never managed to get the car into a decent window, which translated into very high tyre degradation, particularly punishing the front-left – always the limiting factor in Shanghai.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Thompson – Getty Images
“Also a big problem for us is at the moment the tyre degradation. We are graining a lot and probably more than the people around us,” Verstappen confirmed.
“The rest of the race was again the same as the sprint, just a lot of graining, can’t push, terrible pace, terrible balance, like Saturday. So, yeah, just a very bad weekend for us.”
When Verstappen says that Sunday’s problems were the same as the day before, it highlights an important difference compared to previous years. Red Bull has had many weekends before where things started poorly, sometimes related to correlation issues. But after the team turned the car “upside down” – as Verstappen calls it – Red Bull often managed to get things sorted just before the start of qualifying.
The sprint weekend in Shanghai offered that possibility as well with two parc ferme periods, and Red Bull did try to make the most of that chance. The team attempted to use all data from the sprint to get the RB22 into a better window for qualifying, but simply didn’t succeed. In fact, Verstappen’s complaints remained exactly the same.
“We changed a lot on the car and it makes zero difference. The whole weekend we’ve been off, the car is completely undriveable,” he concluded after qualifying, and therefore after the set-up changes.
“In the past, sometimes we would throw it upside down and it would work. Now, nothing works. So, yeah, it’s just not nice. I cannot push, every lap is honestly survival for me. I’m not enjoying it at all. It’s just very inconsistent.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Lintao Zhang / LAT Images via Getty Images
Those last words highlight another key difference compared to previous years. At certain stages of last season Red Bull also lacked outright pace, but the car still reacted in a way that Verstappen expected. That at least gave him a weapon to fight with and sometimes compensate for the lack of pure speed. But now, that the balance seems all over the place, that element has disappeared as well.
“I think the last few years we were in a much better stable position than what we are now. There’s a lot of stuff that we need to do better at the moment,” the four-time world champion admitted.
Red Bull could really use the break after Japan
The race weekend in China has exposed that there are still several problems to solve on the chassis side, at least on this type of circuit. With the all-new power unit, many in the paddock expected Red Bull to struggle mainly on the engine side of things, but the reality turned out to be more complex than that – something team principal Mekies also acknowledges.
The media session with the Frenchman was cancelled after the difficult race, but in a press release Mekies did admit that there is a great deal of work to be done.
“Performance wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings. However, we have learned so much over the past few weeks, and I expect that we can be more competitive from the next round in Japan in a fortnight’s time. After that, the unfortunate but inevitable cancellation of the races in April will give all of us a chance to catch our breath and work as hard as always in Milton Keynes.”
The cancellation of the grands prix in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia might be a blessing in disguise for Red Bull. It gives the team led by Mekies and technical director Pierre Wache a bit more time to analyse the data and come up with possible solutions for the longer term.
Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images
“After Japan, of course, you have a few extra weeks to put a bit more performance on the car, but at the same time others also find performance, right?” Verstappen reacted. “It’s really not where we want to be. I know everyone is trying their best and I think they are as frustrated with it as me within the team, but yeah, we want to be better and hopefully we can already be a little bit better in Japan.”
Of the four top teams of recent years, Red Bull appears to need the break the most. McLaren also has work to do after three DNSs in just two race weekends, but team principal Andrea Stella said the overall concept of the papaya car still offers a good platform – just one that is underdeveloped for now.
At Red Bull, the car did not respond as expected in China – neither to Verstappen’s inputs behind the wheel nor to all the set-up changes that were attempted. The Milton Keynes-based team has homework to do to get back where it belongs – and judging by the Shanghai weekend quite a lot of it.
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– The Autosport.com Team