F1 News: Max Verstappen’s Chances Of Championship Win Are Low – “Start Again From Zero”
The unreliability of Red Bull’s 2022 cars has meant Max Verstappen, the reigning F1 champion, has a long way to go until he gets his hands on another championship after two DNFs over just three races.
The Australian Grand Prix saw the latest issues. “Stop the car please, stop the car,” he was told by his engineer over the radio on his 39th lap of the GP. This has meant the Belgian racer has ended his third weekend of the year with only 25 points thanks to a similar ending at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
This places him well behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who led almost the whole of the Aussie GP, who has collected 71 points in total, with his last race giving him 26 of those. 25 for the win, and 1 for the fastest lap.This gives Leclerc a lead over Verstappen by 46 points already, and if this still isn’t making you gasp, this will give it some reference.
In 2021, the largest points gap between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton was only 32 points.
Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez said the following on their gap to the front:
“I mean, we’ve lost a lot of points already in the first three races that in the end can make a huge difference in the championship.” Perez said to PostRace.
“We’re obviously aware of it. All of the team back home in Milton Keynes, all working flat out to try and come up with solutions.
“We don’t know exactly the issue for max today, so we will see, and I’m sure we will turn things around and hopefully we can start again from zero when we go back to Europe.”
Teams have now head home after the Australian GP to continue working on their cars before the upcoming race at Imola where we’ll see the first sprint race of the year. But with confidence low in both the Red Bull and Mercedes camp, Ferrari is at an all time high.
