Analysis
Formula 1
Red Bull drops behind McLaren in F1 2017 race miles
Red Bull has fallen behind McLaren in the Formula 1 race mileage stakes this season, completing fewer grand prix laps in 2017 than any other team on the grid.
Jonathan Noble Casper Bekking
Edited: May 5, 2021, 4:20 PM
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Despite Daniel Ricciardo taking the team’s first victory of the season in Baku last weekend, teammate Max Verstappen’s fourth retirement from the last six races meant it was a bittersweet day for the team.
The scale of Red Bull’s problems has been highlighted by the fact that Verstappen’s latest stoppage means he is the full-time driver who has completed the fewest race laps all season – just 277 in total. Only temporary stand-ins Antonio Giovinazzi and Jenson Button are behind him.
In team terms, Red Bull has now dropped behind McLaren – which has been beset by Honda reliability problems but managed to get both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne home in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Over the first eight races of the year, Red Bull has managed to complete just 685 race laps – which is 31 fewer than McLaren has done. In comparison, Force India (956 laps) and Mercedes (946) are the two teams that have completed the most laps.
Although not all of Red Bull’s retirements were down to car or engine failures - Verstappen exited at Turn 1 in Spain after a clash with Kimi Raikkonen - it is clear that recent engine issues have left the team a bit frustrated.
Speaking after a weekend in Azerbaijan where Verstappen was hit by a stoppage in practice and the race, team principal Christian Horner said: “The two failures that Max has were totally unrelated, this was a sudden loss of oil pressure and they [the cars] don't like not having oil in them.
“Renault need to do the right post-mortem and understand what the right cause of failure is.”
When asked if the problems were the result of Renault simply pushing harder for performance, Horner replied: “I'm not sure, to be honest. You know, the cause of failure that we had in Montreal was nothing to do with performance.
“You can’t fault the people on the floor and behind the scenes that are pushing hard. And, you know, as a race team we're always impatient to have more performance and better reliability.”
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