Despite Red Bull having cruised to another 1-2 at last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, race winner Sergio Pérez has warned his side that reliability issues are “going to hit us at some point”, suggesting that everything isn’t quite as perfect as it seems at the Milton Keynes-based team.
After obliterating the competition last season with 17 wins, Red Bull have somehow become even stronger over the winter break, with the Austrians having been unbeatable at the opening two rounds of the 2023 F1 season.
Red Bull have claimed a 1-2 at both races so far this year, whilst Max Verstappen and Pérez also have a pole position each.
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Their qualifying and race pace is miles clear of every other team on the grid, with nobody being able to run the same lap times consistently.
Fernando Alonso attempted to stay on the back of Pérez at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, but ultimately fell 21 seconds behind the Mexican.
Whilst only two races have been completed, it does seem for all the world that Red Bull are going to comfortably win both titles; however, Pérez has warned his side that issues are ahead if they don’t solve some reliability issues.
Pérez has been somewhat lucky so far this season and hasn’t really suffered from any reliability issues, although, he was concerned that his car had developed a fault towards the end of Sunday’s race.
Verstappen on the other hand, endured a transmission-based issue during the Bahrain Grand Prix and suffered a catastrophic driveshaft failure at the start of Q2 in Saudi Arabia, which resulted in the reigning world champion starting the race from 15th.
Pérez is concerned that the side are eventually going to suffer a reliability-based retirement if they don’t get on top of their issues, with the 33-year-old having admitted that himself and Verstappen came incredibly close to retiring in Bahrain.
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“Well, reliability is where it is. We saw it today with Aston Martin. It’s going to hit us at some point, but obviously, we need to keep working on that,” Pérez said during the post-race press conference.
“We need to reduce races with issues whenever we can. We were in a lucky position in Bahrain, but otherwise, if we had to push to the end, we probably wouldn’t make the [end of the] race.
“So there are a lot of reliability concerns at the moment, but hopefully, they don’t hit us anytime soon.”