Verstappen pins hopes on a better race in Jeddah after horrendous Bahrain Grand Prix

Reigning champion Max Verstappen was left to rue a series of problems that affected him during the Bahrain Grand Prix, but he hopes that Red Bull can turn their fortunes around at this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

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.

Having endured a tough and tricky day in Bahrain, Verstappen has called out for improvements, but h has already set his sights at next weekend's round in Jeddah.

“P6 was at least a positive result considering all the things that went wrong today. The start was not good, we struggled with tyre management all race, and I had no grip or pace on the hard tyres.

"During our pit-stops there was a problem with the lights which cost us a lot of time in the pits and put us back in to traffic. Unfortunately our second pitstop was worse than the first and at one point I was in last place. I enjoyed the fight at the end with Pierre and the overtake on the last lap, I tried to maximise our points until the very end.

"To finish P6 at the end was the best that we could do, this was not the weekend that we wanted but we have to keep on trying to improve. We are working on finding solutions and solving the issues we have at the moment to hopefully be more competitive in Jeddah."

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.

Speaking of his Bahrain race, Tsunoda noted: “Today is another learning curve, I feel like I could have done better, there are still a lot of things we could have done better together and the pit-stop issues lost us position. The pace was good, but I am not fully happy because I still think we could have made up a couple of more positions.

"It’s only my second race and things come up that you haven’t experienced before, so it’s good a lot of new things are happening in this early phase, so I can maximise things in the future. Overall, it’s my first points with the Team, so it has to be a positive day. I feel like we took a step forward from Suzuka, so I appreciate how the Team have supported me and how we have been able to progress in a good way so quickly.

"I am not setting a specific goal for Jeddah yet, it’s just about keeping doing what I am doing, I hope to do slightly better in Qualifying and that should make my life easier," Tsunoda commented.