Red Bull with 16 points after three races: never this bad since 2015

Disastrous start The new technical rules introduced this season have had a strong impact on Red Bull and its drivers, starting with Max Verstappen. Dissatisfied with the results and characteristics of the new cars, the Dutchman even threatened to retire from Formula 1, with teammate Isack Hadjar, another who arrived in Milton Keynes after his experience in Racing Bulls, who also expressed very negative opinions on the RB22, particularly after the Japanese Grand Prix. Suzuka, moreover, was the third race of this championship, which ended with only Verstappen in the points, but still in 8th place. If we add to this the negative results of the four-time world champion and Hadjar in the previous rounds, the Anglo-Austrian team now occupies sixth position in the Constructors’ standings, tied with Alpine on 16 points. A worse start It is necessary to go back eleven years, to 2015, to remember how much worse Red Bull did in Formula 1 after the first three GPs, in a season in which the Sprint race had not yet entered the world championship (in the only one held this year in China, both Verstappen and Hadjar did not score any points). Following the departure of Sebastian Vettel, who moved to Ferrari after his four world titles won in Red Bull, the team replaced the German with Daniil Kvyat, promoted after his first season in F1 with Toro Rosso (now renamed Racing Bulls). However, the Russian driver’s debut in Australia turned into a sporting nightmare: on the reconnaissance lap, in fact, he had to deal with a gearbox problem, retiring even before the start. His teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, finished in front of his home crowd in 6th place, in what would prove to be the best result of the first three races of that championship. First in Malaysia and then in China, the then #3 achieved 10th and 9th place respectively, in both cases at the bottom of the points. Furthermore, in Sepang, Ricciardo finished right behind Kvyat, who had to retire once again in China, in that case due to an engine failure just at a time when he was occupying the points zone. After the race in Shanghai, Red Bull found itself in fifth place in the world championship, with only 13 points. During the season, however, the Milton Keynes house managed to recover, albeit without any victory. While Ricciardo reached the podium on two occasions, Kvyat took 2nd place in Hungary just ahead of the Australian. The world championship ended with Red Bull in fourth place at 187 points, -70 from Williams (third) and -516 from world champion Mercedes, who failed to win in only three of the nineteen races on the calendar.