Horner reveals technical issues that contributed to dismal Bahrain result

On the back of a difficult weekend in Bahrain, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has revealed that two technical issues have hindered the Milton Keynes outfit's performance in Sakhir.

Hot on the heels of Max Verstappen's brilliant win in Suzuka, Red Bull had expected to be in the fight in Sakhir despite the very different track characteristics of the Bahrain International Circuit.

However, the team never looked competitive over the weekend, with both Verstappen and his new team-mate Yuki Tsunoda struggling for a consistent performance. Although both drivers got into the last segment of qualifying, the Dutch and the Japanese drivers failed to impress in the 57-lap race.

On top of the performance-related issues, Verstappen and Tsunoda had a slow first stop as the sensors on the pit box gantry malfunctioned. For the second stint, Verstappen was put on the hard tyre, and he struggled for grip on the white-walled rubber so much that he was forced to make an early stop.

This change to a fresh set of mediums saw Verstappen lose a handful of position, dropping to last. With the Safety Car interruption, the reigning champion moved up the order, and a relatively strong final stint saw him end up sixth in Manama.

His team-mate Tsunoda also had a slow pit stop and made contact with Williams driver Carlos Sainz twice, clipping the Spaniard’s sidepod and also his rear wing. The Japanese escaped any penalties for his ambitious move, and collected his first points for Red Bull with a ninth-place finish in Sakhir.

Although Horner labelled Red Bull's weekend as "horrible," he was delighted that Verstappen could limit the damage to championship leader Lando Norris.

"Nothing went our way from the start of the race. We’ve been struggling with two issues this weekend, one a braking issue, and secondly an imbalance issue. When you have these issues tyre degradation is also highlighted more.

"On top of that we’ve had just a horrible day where we had an issue in the pit gantry that caused a problem with the traffic light. The actual pit-stops were actually quite good, but the electric issues definitely impacted our race.

"For Max to come away with a P6 and to limit the deficit to Lando this weekend despite the challenges we’ve had is the best we could have hoped for.

"Yuki has had a very solid weekend. Qualifying in the top 10, finishing in the points today, he drove pretty well here in Bahrain. The Team are very much focused on developing the car and hopefully over the next few races there are some updates that are introduced that address the issues raised."

Reflecting on the hardware issues that hindered Red Bull in Bahrain, Horner said that while the team is eager to find solutions, it will probably take a bit of time to solve them.

"This race has exposed some pitfalls that we very clearly have that we need to get on top of quickly, we understand where the issues are but introducing the solutions takes a bit longer.

"We have a strong technical team that has produced some of the best race cars in the world in the past few seasons so I am confident that we can turn things around. As a Team we are focused on analysing and sorting what is possible when we go again in Jeddah in five days' time."