Red Bull Called Out By Former F1 Mechanic Priestley: 'What Have You Got?'

Saturday, 30 March 2024 at 16:38

Updated at Saturday, 30 March 2024 at 16:40

Popular former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley recently called out Red Bull, suggesting the team is not as "invincible" as they thought.

After the season's super successful first two races, many wrote off 2024 as yet another year of Red Bull Racing's dominance. It seemed like the Austrian team would just go on to win every single race after the first two results.

However, the team from Milton Keynes didn't have even a single car on the podium during the Australian Grand Prix, and their lead in the Championship came down to four points.

A big part of that is Max Verstappen's retirement. The triple World Champion had to retire his RB20 after less than five laps, which allowed Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc to take control of the situation and bring home a one-two result for Scuderia. Priestley said on the Chequered Flag podcast:

"To see him disappear out of this race so early with a technical failure was really unusual."

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"It was an unusual weekend and what that gave was opportunity to everybody else up and down the grid. Everyone suddenly saw – even way down towards the back – people saw the opportunity of points happening, so it's opened up."

Helmut Marko saw a positive in this situation, saying that at least he won't be asked how long his team can keep its race-winning streak going.

On the other hand, Priestley would instead ask if the Austrian team could win if they didn't have the 26-year-old driver behind the steering wheel.

"What made a great Sunday, a great race, not just because Max Verstappen was out of it, this was a great race anyway and it was close racing, but I think this shows that there is a vulnerability to Red Bull Racing that we all thought there kind of wasn't. We thought they were invincible. Well, they're not."

"What it does really highlight is the fact that if you're Red Bull, and you haven't got Max Verstappen, what have you got?"

The Australian Grand Prix was the first race in the last ten that Verstappen couldn't win, but unfortunately, Sergio Perez wasn't there to take his place.

According to reports from Red Bulls bosses, the Mexican driver was also unlucky. They explained that a tear-off was stuck in the duct of his floor, which decreased his performance.

Nevertheless, if Checo started from the front row, he wouldn't have this kind of issue, perhaps, and the former F1 mechanic believes this highlights a bigger problem for Red Bull.

"Because Sergio wasn’t there in second place, which is where they really need him to be. So this has highlighted an even bigger problem perhaps for Red Bull Racing"