To the outside world, Red Bull seemed to have driven towards a double victory with ease, according to Martin Brundle, Red Bull was confronted with a major problem on both cars during the race in Bahrain.
Brundle said he spoke to some so-called ‘key figures’ after the race, which shows that Red Bull had a critical problem during the race. So no ‘walk in the park’ for Red Bull, even if it seemed that way to the outside world.
“After the race I spoke with some key people and it became clear that the race for Red Bull was not as easy as expected,” Brundle writes in his column for ‘Sky Sports’. “Both cars got new oil inlet pipes in the parc ferm and during the race they had to try to manage a critical gearbox problem on both cars.”
This is good and bad news for the competition. On the one hand it means that Red Bull is also facing technical problems, on the other hand it is also worrying because Red Bull not only had a big lead during the race, it also had it while it was experiencing problems.
However you look at it, Verstappen was cruising, he could easily have had ten seconds more lead if necessary. Maybe even more.”
“I’m sure at Red Bull they have cut the engine down so that extra engine power is available during another race.”