Christian Horner issues Red Bull demand as reliability issues bite hard

Australian Grand Prix

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Horner issues Red Bull demand as reliability issues bite hard

Red Bull and AlphaTauri fuel and power problems are all independent issues

Will Gray

Monday 11 April 2022 08:00 Updated: 16:52

Christian Horner is demanding a quick fix to solve the different issues that have beset Red Bull and sister team AlphaTauri so far this season.

Reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen retired with a “fuel issue” in Australia, adding to a double retirement for the team in Bahrain caused by fuel pressure problems, while AlphaTauri suffered undefined power unit failures in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Following the latest issue, with Verstappen already 46 points behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in the wake of the Monégasque's victory in Melbourne, Horner said: “We’ve obviously seen across the two teams a few issues.

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"They’ve all been independent, none of them have been related, so we need to understand those and address them quickly.

“It’s obviously very frustrating to have a DNF on Max’s car. It looks like a fuel system issue external to the tank that caused it. It’s gone into quarantine, the parts will return to Japan.

“We will try to understand the problem as quickly as we can. We could see in the feed from the data that something was wrong, and Max could smell it. It is totally separate [to the issues suffered in Bahrain].”

Red Bull has lost significant points

Red Bull posted just four retirements across the entire 22-race season last year on its way to winning the title but has already suffered three in as many grands prix this season.

In the constructors' championship, it finds itself 49 points adrift of Ferrari who also had a pace advantage over Red Bull at Albert Park.

A concerned Horner added: “Even on a day when we weren’t as quick as Ferrari, a guaranteed second place in two races...for Max we’ve given up 36 points and for the team we’ve given up 50 points.

“When you look at that, both the constructors’ and the drivers’ championship would be a lot different.

"There’s still a huge percentage of the championship still to run, but we need to get on top of these issues quickly.”