2022 Australian GP: Post-race reaction from Max Verstappen and Perez

Red Bull had a mixed 2022 Australian Grand Prix on Sunday. Checo Perez scored podium while 2021 Champion Max Verstappen picks up another DNF with a mechanical problem.

Until the start of lap 39, Max was sitting in second and had worked hard to keep Leclerc in view as the Ferrari driver utilized his car’s greater race pace to carve out a strong lead, but as Max crossed the line to begin the lap his RB18 suddenly lost power and was forced to pull over at the side of the track at the exit of turn one and retire.

The failure promoted Checo to second and having battled with both Mercedes cars in the early phases of the race, the Mexican was eventually able to draw away and claim his first podium of 2022, with five seconds in hand over third-placed George Russell.

Sergio Perez clinches his first podium of the 2022 season with a P2 finish and the 16th podium of his F1 career.

Ferrari (104 points) leads the constructor championship ahead of Mercedes(65 points) by 39 points after three races into the 2022 season. Red Bull sits in P3 with 55 total points. Meanwhile, Charles Leclerc leads the driver championship table with 71 points ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell in P2 with 37 points. Sergio Perez sits in P4 with 30 points and Max Verstappen sits in P6 with just 25 points.

Max Verstappen (DNF):

“It’s of course very disappointing to not finish today’s race, I don’t really know what happened to the car yet, we’ll take it back to the factory and regroup. I already knew there was a possibility ahead of the race that we might not finish but I tried not to think about it. This is not what you need when you want to fight for the Championship, the gap is already pretty big.

Of course, Checo did well to come second, he scored some good points. Overall it doesn’t look like there is an easy fix so we need to work hard as a Team, there are a lot of things to work on. We’ll wake up tomorrow and focus on the upcoming races and do the best that we can.”

Sergio Perez (P2):

“It was a good result but, unfortunately, we lost Max and it would have been great to have a double podium for the Team. On the other hand, it is a good result after so many unlucky moments in the first couple of races for me. It was a very complicated race with the start I had and the safety cars, but we managed to overcome it.

My first start was very poor, we struggled a lot with degradation on the medium tyre, we were a bit unlucky with the safety car and we lost two positions which we recovered later.

We got a few things wrong across the weekend and we were battling more with Mercedes than Ferrari so the pace wasn’t where we want it to be, but we will work on it. There is some good analysis to be done from this weekend because yesterday we were close for pole, but in the race we were a bit too far off the pace.

The fastest guys out there are Ferrari, we want to be up there fighting with them and today that wasn’t the case. If we can improve the car a little, then we can be more confident.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal

“Checo drove an exceptional race today with some stunning overtakes to secure his first podium of the season and bag some solid Championship points. But it was very much a day of mixed emotions with Max not finishing. We think it was an external fuel leak and we need to understand exactly what has caused that failure, so it was a very frustrating race in that respect.

But we are in this as a team and we will bounce back. We didn’t have the pace of Ferrari today, so congratulations to Charles. It’s a long season ahead and we have the basis of a quick and competitive car, but we need to get on top of these issues quickly and we will keep pushing.”