If Red Bull left Jeddah with a big smile thanks to the victory of Max Verstappen, the engines of the Austrian team and AlphaTauri, now rebadged Red Bull Powertrains, seem to be problematic in terms of reliability at the start of the season.
Yuki Tsunoda, for example, was not even able to start the Grand Prix yesterday due to a transmission problem. The Japanese is already on his second engine used this season, the first having suffered a technical problem during free practice on Friday.
Always on the side of AlphaTauri, Pierre Gasly had to stop in the middle of the third free practice session on Saturday. The Frenchman is also using his second power unit, the first having caught fire in Bahrain following the abandonment of the AT03.
For Christian Horner, the director of Red Bull, all these reliability problems are a source of concern for the rest of the season.
“Of course we’re worried,” said the British manager.
“But I think we have to figure out what’s going on first. Once we’ve taken the engine apart to figure out what the problem is, hopefully we’ll be able to find a solution.”
AlphaTauri wants to understand why it has engine problems and not Red Bull
Franz Tost, the director of AlphaTauri, discusses the reason which prevented Tsunoda from taking the start in Jeddah.
“The oil pressure has dropped and as a result we have decided to stop. We don’t know yet if we will be able to use this engine again or which part broke, we need to investigate.”
If the two Red Bulls had retired in Bahrain, it was because of a problem with the fuel system. Tost therefore wants to understand why AlphaTauri seems to have more problems with the engine than the sister team.
“I want to understand why we suffer so much with reliability, because that’s not the case at Red Bull.
Galsy’s engine, which was set on fire in Bahrain, is now completely unusable and a battery problem is believed to be the cause of the initial breakdown. Tost explains to us that she is now on her way to Japan for research to be carried out.
“It’s still on its way to Japan because it can’t be airlifted. The battery was put in a sealed box and filled with water that travels by ship. We have to wait for them to study it to figure out what that is happening.”