Red Bull dismiss championship concern but "playing catchup"

Max Verstappen after his DNF in Australia — Photo: © LAT Images

Red Bull

Red Bull dismiss championship concern but "playing catchup"

Red Bull has been unable to match Ferrari or Mercedes for reliability so far this year

Sam Hall

Thursday 21 April 2022 05:00

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Christian Horner has conceded Red Bull is "playing catchup" to Ferrari with reliability problems so far limiting the team's points scoring capability.

From a combined six starts this season, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have taken the chequered flag on just three occasions with neither driver finishing in Bahrain and the reigning champion, again, retiring in Australia.

These issues have allowed Ferrari to establish a 49 point lead over Red Bull in the constructors' standings with Mercedes also 10 clear in second.

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The drivers' table makes for similarly grim reading for the Milton Keynes-based team with Charles Leclerc already enjoying a 41 point advantage over Perez with Verstappen trailing by a further five.

But backing Red Bull to recover, team principal Horner explained: "We’re only just over 10 per cent of the way into the championship so there’s still a huge amount to go.

"The encouraging thing is we have the basis of a quick car."

Ferrari "in a happier place" than Red Bull

Although Verstappen had been able to topple Charles Leclerc in Saudi Arabia, this outcome never appeared likely in Australia with Red Bull unable to match the Ferrari driver's pace.

"Ferrari were out of reach," added Horner. "The window that they were in with their tyres, you could just see they weren’t experiencing the problems through blistering that some of the other cars were experiencing, or the graining that we experienced they didn’t have.

"They were just in a happier place, which tends to happen when your balance is more settled."