The Australian Grand Prix ended for Red Bull Racing with Max Verstappen’s first retirement of the season due to seized brakes and Sergio Perez’s fifth place. The team retained the lead in the Constructors’ Championship, but the lead over Ferrari was reduced to four points.
Sergio Perez (5th): “Unfortunately we didn’t have the pace – the problems started at the beginning of the race. We saw that Ferrari and McLaren were one step ahead of us.
We have not been able to achieve the optimal balance, so we will have to work on this for the coming races. Melbourne has a unique asphalt and we were unable to provide optimal wheel grip all weekend. Our team just didn’t have the pace this weekend.
The problems started on Friday and we still couldn’t find a way to get started with the tires. You need to understand and add the reason. We’ve seen before that Ferrari is faster than us on circuits like Vegas and we can’t control the wear on the front tires.
Would Ferrari have won if Max had not stopped? Yes absolutely.”
Max Verstappen (departure): “As far as we could see through the telemetry, from the very beginning of the race the right rear brake started to lock, and it is clear that the temperature started to rise. It was like driving without releasing the handbrake.
I immediately felt that the car was behaving strangely in some corners, the rear end was becoming more and more nervous. From the start of the weekend everything went well for us, I was happy with the team’s performance, but if your brakes stick, it doesn’t help.
I repeat: this was felt almost from the very beginning. It is not yet clear what the problem is, but we will certainly find out. I can’t even remember if we had similar problems before; if so, it was a very long time ago.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
