Red Bull reveals cause of Verstappen’s Chinese GP DNF
Max Verstappen climbs out of his RB22 after retiring
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has revealed a “coolant fault” led to Max Verstappen’s late-race retirement at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Verstappen and Red Bull had a difficult weekend in Shanghai as the RB22 came up short against Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren.
Red Bull reveals cause of Max Verstappen’s Chinese GP DNF
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Despite an impressive attack after a late Safety Car to launch his way up to ninth place, Verstappen fell short of the points in the Sprint race, while his teammate Isack Hadjar was P15, having been caught out in a boisterous attempt at a pass from Kimi Antonelli in the early laps.
“What a disaster, to be honest,” declared Verstappen to DAZN.
“From the back, trying to of course stay out of trouble. But we also didn’t have good pace, deg on the tyres, very bad deg on the tyres. We need to analyse why that is, because I was even losing at one point to the midfield cars.”
The grand prix, though, wasn’t any better for the four-time World Champion.
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The four-time World Champion lined up in eighth place as he was almost a full second down on pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli on Saturday.
Verstappen lost places off the line, again finding himself short on battery power at the start, and spent much of the grand prix trying to work his way into the points, only for the call to come on Lap 46 to “box”.
His race was over, the Dutchman crawling back to the pits in his ailing RB22.
According to Red Bull, the 28-year-old’s RB22 suffered an energy recovery system (ERS) coolant failure.
“We had to retire Max because of a coolant fault,” said team principal Mekies.
“This was not our only issue as overall, performance wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings.”
The Frenchman, though, adopted an encouraging tone, adding: “However, we have learned so much over the past few weeks and I expect that we can be more competitive from the next round in Japan in a fortnight’s time.
“We have a great group of talented people on the campus and I have full confidence that we will get through our current limitations thanks to a massive push from everyone, and improve our package rapidly.”
Verstappen’s teammate Hadjar finished the race in eighth place, scoring his first points in Red Bull colours.
Red Bull is fifth in the championship after two rounds on 12 points, 86 behind championship leaders Mercedes.
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