A weekend to forget
There Red Bull in China between Sprint and GP he scored just four points and after the smiles in Melbourne between third place in Qualifying and Verstappen’s comeback in the race the first inevitable long faces arrived after a weekend as an appearance beaten without appeal by Haas and also by its little sister Racing Bulls.
In fact, a retirement from the race also occurred in Shanghai, this time for Max Verstappenrecalled to the pits while in sixth position due to a problem with the cooling system of the hybrid component of the power unit that equips the RB22. Isack Hadjar spun on the first lap while battling with Oliver Bearman and finished the GP in eighth place behind Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson.
Furthermore, the German newspaper Auto Motor und Sport through an accurate analysis of radio communications it also highlighted that during the Chinese GP for 36 laps Max Verstappen tackled Turn-6 doing ‘lift and coast’ in vain without the Red Bull wall intervening to correct this ‘setting’ which was also adopted in other points of the track as indicated by the team such as in Turn-1 and Turn-14. On lap 36, in fact, Lambiase told Verstappen that the point where he lost the most compared to Oliver Bearman who preceded him was Turn-6, and at that point Verstappen got angry because he discovered that he had done lift and coast without there being any need. “I took my foot off the gas for half the race. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”Verstappen said via radio. “I’m on your side, Max. I’m trying to help you and give you information. Nothing else.”Lambiase’s response to the Dutchman’s complaints. In short, it’s raining wet at Red Bull, a team that has a lot of work to do to try to revive the fortunes of a 2026 that seemed promising, but which currently sees the Milton Keynes team very far from Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren.
