Max Verstappen: Bahrain Grand Prix is Red Bull's low point

Max Verstappen

Verstappen: Bahrain is Red Bull's low point

He couldn't get close to Ferrari or Mercedes.

Matthew Scott

Thursday 4 April 2019 14:36 Updated: 14:46

Make us your Google favorite

Max Verstappen says the run to fourth at the Bahrain Grand Prix is as bad as Red Bull will perform in 2019. The Dutchman almost took a podium finish when Charles Leclerc's Ferrari lost power, however a top-three spot might have been more than generous.

Verstappen qualified fifth in Sakhir, albeit almost a second adrift of Charles Leclerc's pole time.

Unable to challenge the front-runners in the same way which saw him overtake Sebastian Vettel for third place in Melbourne, Verstappen gained a place as a result of the German's spin in battle with Lewis Hamilton, but is confident he will be closer to the fight for honours, having tested the RB15 in Bahrain this week.

Article continues under video

"It cannot be worse than what we showed here," he said after putting in 69 laps and topping the timesheets on Tuesday.

"Also, we made some mistakes I think in terms of set-up. I think if you look back to Australia, we were actually quite happy.

"Of course it was still 20 seconds to Valtteri [Bottas, race winner], but in that race I couldn't go and push like I wanted to because basically I was always held up by a car.

"I think we can do a lot better than what we showed so far."

GPFans F1 Podcast #3 - Leclerc luckless, Vettel spins, Schumacher's debut and more!Subscribe today!Read more

Dr Helmut Marko and Christian Horner have both suggested that Red Bull's lack of pace is more to do with aerodynamic failings than the Honda power unit and Verstappen is confident a fix will be found.

"You always want more downforce," said Verstappen. "It's also about how you can balance it and clearly we did something wrong during the weekend.

"We did a good amount of laps to understand what went wrong on the weekend.

"I think we learned a lot from it already, so in that way I think it's very positive.

"We don't have that many days anyway to understand the car, during the weekend it all goes that quick.

"Just always doing one and a half hour sessions [in practice] is not amazing. Doing a day like this is very helpful."