Red Bull goes through the pit stop issue and brake trouble they faced in F1 Bahrain GP, as Max Verstappen salvages good points, while Yuki Tsunoda gets his first.
Having had the success in Japan, Red Bull were not able to replicate any of it in F1 Bahrain GP, where their problems only compounded. The brakes were not working properly, especially on Verstappen’s side. The team had to change some of the parts under parc ferme for the grand prix.
It was slightly better but not enough. The brakes trouble hurt his tyres too, as lack of balance disrupted his tyre management. He managed to salvage sixth despite dropping to last at one point after pit stop dramas, which team boss Christian Horner is trying to assess what went wrong.
Initially, they though the button was not pressed hard enough. A full investigation will happen but Horner noted about a wiring loom problem with the pit gantry. The pit stop only added to an overall difficult weekend as the team boss stated. They are unable to crack the co-relation.
The windtunnel shows positive numbers, but it doesn’t reflect on track. There is nothing Verstappen can do, who is relaxed about the situation and doing as much he can. That moment of relaxation popped his mind to see things around, which caught out Lando Norris at Bahrain GP start as well.
Teammate Tsunoda scored his first point for Red Bull, which was a decent effort considering the numerous fights he was involved in. He couldn’t get as close to Verstappen, but had his own fights – including double with Carlos Sainz. He didn’t feel the first contact, which ended the Spaniard’s race.
Pit stop trouble –
Verstappen: “Not good of course when you are waiting for so long. We had two separate problems, not too our standards. Normally our pit stops are good, not sure what happened.”
Tsunoda: “Yeah, Max had it as well. It is a bit unusual from Red Bull as they are normally good at pit stops, I don’t know what happened.”
Horner: “It shows the margins and the windows that you have to work within. We’ve been struggling with two issues this weekend, one a braking issue, and secondly, just an imbalance. And when you have that then tyre deg etc, everything looks worse. On top of that, we’ve had a horrible day where we had [what looks] like a wiring loom issue in the pit gantry, which has caused there to be a problem with the traffic light. All in all, to actually come away with a sixth place and limit it to an eight-point deficit to Lando with the challenges that we’ve had, we need to leave here obviously focusing on what we can sort out for Jeddah in five days time. I’ve just heard that there was some kind of wiring or electrical issue with the gantry.
“It’s one I certainly haven’t seen before where, I mean, the drivers live by those traffic lights, and the actual stops were pretty good. They were two seconds. It was a two-second stop, but then the drivers waiting for the lights, and then obviously, it didn’t go out. So everything’s gone into quarantine, and we’ll have a good look at it. At the first stop, Max came in and the light in the thing… It’s a very simple system and we expected that, maybe, the button hadn’t been pressed hard enough by one of the technicians. The next pit stop was within one minute. And then it happened again, and at that point, we went into a manual override on the system with the chief mechanic.”
Brakes trouble, if both drivers –
Verstappen: “The brakes was a little bit better because we were allowed to changed. But the problem is not only the feeling in the brakes which is still not where I want it to be, but also our tyres are overheating. So, when I’m braking, there is no feeling because it’s super easy to lock fronts or rears at the same time.”
Horner: “He’s not getting any bite or feel from the pedal, and of course it’s such an important tool that gives the driver so much feedback. On top of that, your entries end up compromised, you take in too much speed, and it creates its own issues. So we need to get to the bottom of that pretty quickly. He hasn’t got the reference of the 2023 car or early 2024 car to draw upon but he’s giving good feedback and his comments are largely aligned with the feeling that Max is, his limitations are the same areas where Max is feeling the car needs to be to improve. The brake problems is probably to a lesser extent, I don’t think he’s getting….Max knows that there is chunk of time there to sort that out, Yuki hasn’t experienced that yet.”
Overall results –
Verstappen: “The pace was very bad. But I didn’t expect the race that I had, because, basically, everything went wrong what could go wrong. That probably made it a little bit worse. But I think the position where I finished is, at the end of the day, the maximum that we could have done. Lack of balance, when you have no balance and tyre management then yeah, this track is worse. I just feel like we are even worse on tyres somehow this year. It makes it just very complicated, because last year we were not too bad around here. Then people made improvements but I feel like we actually had a worse weekend last year, bit weird.”
Tsunoda: “I’ll still take it, I mean first points. The progress I am having, the direction we are taking, I am quite happy with that. It was quite eventful race, couple of issues with the pit stop and other things, just have to learn from it and make it better. It is kind of mixed, maybe that situation caused a bit on my strategy as well, I had to overtake couple of cars, more than I had to. I still had really good pace and could overtake some cars, so it was good.”
Horner: “It was a bad weekend for the team, nothing went our way from the start of the start of the race. The start, we didn’t get off the line cleanly and the pit stops didn’t work well for us. The tyre degradation, temperatures got very high. If you’ve got a well-balanced car, the whole thing just comes together that much easier. “It’s a 24-race championship. We’re eight points behind in the drivers’ championship. We know we need to make progress very quickly. So it was important to score points, he fought for every point that he could in a difficult car. It’s how they add up at the end of the year that’s important.
“I think ultimately you can mask it a little through setup, and we were able to achieve that last weekend in Suzuka. But this race has exposed some pitfalls that we clearly have and need to get on top of quickly. I think we understand where the issues are; it’s just introducing the solutions obviously takes a little more time. That’s what the team are very much focused on, and over the next few races, as updates are introduced, they’re designed to hopefully address some of that. I thought actually Yuki has had a very solid weekend, he qualified in the top ten, finished in the points today, he drove pretty well. He was only 12 or 14 seconds behind his teammate, so I thought Yuki’s race was actually reasonably good.”
Understanding problems, situation –
Horner: “I think the problems are understood. The issue is that the solutions we’re seeing in our tools don’t correlate with what we’re seeing on track. That’s what we need to get to the bottom of. Why can’t we see on our tools what we’re seeing on the circuit? When there’s that disconnect, you have to unpick it. We’ve got a strong technical team that’s produced some amazing cars over the last few years. I’m confident they’ll get to the bottom of it. But right now, the tool isn’t replicating the reality on the track. It’s like two watches showing different times.
“The wind tunnel has driven us in a direction that isn’t replicating what we’re seeing on track. Then you end up with a mismatch between what your tools tell you and what the track data says. Now, as we accumulate track data, it’s the track data that’s driving the solutions. You’ve got to understand where its weaknesses are. We’re at the end of a regulation cycle where gains are very marginal, and we’re seeing some of the shortcomings in our current tunnel, there’s struggles in that area.”
Relaxed scene, Norris penalty –
Verstappen: “I’m okay. I mean, it’s what it is. I always try to do the best I can, even in disappointing or let’s say, frustrating situations. But you have to move on. We keep discussing, keep trying to improve. We know that we have our problems. Even if you win a race, you know that doesn’t go away. I said that already last week. I’m not a guy that I think when you have positive or negative scenarios that you get influenced by them, just stay very neutral. So you just have to keep on working. For Lando’s penalty, I mean, there were people still lining up, so I was just waiting. I am quite relaxed, I look around. It was quite clear for me that he was over, I could see from the corner of my eye.”
Sainz hit –
Tsunoda: “The thing is, I didn’t feel in the car that I touched him. I had to confirm the moment I touched…I was thinking that maybe he came more towards me into Turn 1 and also at that moment I had rear spin and as I avoided it, maybe that point my rear tyres and his sidepods touched but the thing is I didn’t feel in the car that I touched. I had a big vibrations afterwards but I thought that came from pick up, so in the end I know that, we had damaged wheels.
“It probably was like that, but it was racing incident. Me and Carlos were fighting real close. We had another contract where my front wing touched his rear and after that we had bit of damage, it didn’t affect my reliability to continue the race but it affected my balance. It was pretty bad, I lost a bit of pace after that but still considering that the pace was still good.”
Here’s penalty to Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-bahrain-grand-prix-norris-hit-with-penalty-for-being-out-of-position-on-the-grid.1829302874178251633
Here’s Yuki Tsunoda and Carlos Sainz: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-bahrain-grand-prix-tsunoda-and-sainz-make-contact-after-battling-at-turn-1.1829307630749683560
Here’s how F1 Bahrain GP panned out
