Max Verstappen criticises Red Bull reliability after Bahrain Grand Prix nightmare

The world champion was forced to retire with two laps remaining due to a suspected power failure

Max Verstappen was forced to retire with two laps remaining in Bahrain (Getty Images)

Max Verstappen criticised Red Bull’s reliability issues after a disastrous end to the Bahrain Grand Prix saw the reigning world champion and teammate Sergio Perez both forced to retire.

Verstappen had seemingly secured a second-place finish behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc only for his car to lose power with two laps to go, while a similar problem caused Perez to spin out at the first corner soon afterwards.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, a bitterly disappointed Verstappen said: “Of course you can always say problems can happen and you might have a retirement.

“But I think at this level, after already having so much information with engines and stuff, it shouldn’t happen.

“We already lost a lot of points again in one race weekend, so that’s just really not good, but of course I know that with one retirement it’s not over, but I would have preferred to have 18 points.”

Perez’s retirement allowed Lewis Hamilton to snatch a surprise third-place finish behind the two Ferraris, but the Mexican driver was more measured in his reaction.

“We were basically on the podium, we hold back Lewis, which was really tough, he was really fast at the end, and a bit of a shame really that we didn’t get that result,” he said.

“We are a great team and I really believe in them and I’m sure we will get to the bottom of it. It’s a very disappointing day, a very disappointing start for our season but we know how long Formula 1 years can be.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said it was too early to draw a definitive conclusion on the problem suffered by both cars but admitted he suspected it was due to their fueling systems.

“[It was] a brutal finish to that race for us,” he said. “What looked like a decent haul of points suddenly evaporated in the last couple of laps.

“It looks like a similar issue on both cars. We don’t know exactly what it is yet, whether it’s a lift pump, whether it’s a collector or something along those lines, but we’ve got to get into it and understand exactly what’s caused it.”