Renault baffled by Verstappen's sudden engine failure
Having enjoyed moving up through the ranks during the Chinese Grand Prix, Max Verstappen eventually had to park his car 2 laps from the end with a catastrophic technical failure.
The young Dutchman impressed fans and his team with a strong race pace.
"The car was performing well and even though we are lacking some top speed, the braking and the downforce we have on the car is really good and that helped me to complete some good overtakes, which I enjoyed a lot."
Verstappen moved up from 13th to a likely 8th place finish until an engine failure stopped his car abruptly on the start finish straight.
"It's a disappointing way to end what was being a great race! To be running in the points positions but then have to stop the car so close to the end of the race is very frustrating. I'm obviously not happy with the final result but as a team we did the best job possible today."
Renault's support leader for Toro Rosso, Cedrik Staudohar, admitted the company still needs to look into the exact issue, but confirmed it was an extremely unexpected issue in the engine package.
"Max' problem appears to be an ICE failure that happened suddenly. We've not had this problem before in either the dyno or on track and need to look into it for Bahrain."
Verstappen's team mate at Toro Rosso, Carlos Sainz had a similarly disappointing weekend as his gearbox suddenly put itself into neutral, losing vital places and a chance for points.
