Does Red Bull have what it takes to challenge for the title this year? Verstappen sees it clearly or What does he say about the results so far?

Formula 1 has only completed three races out of twenty-three so far, but already journalists across the world’s media are asking whether Max Verstappen can defend his title from last year. Red Bull are currently suffering from the reliability of their race pace cars, so how did the reigning world champion assess the opening three events?

Neither Red Bull Racing driver finished in Bahrain, Verstappen won in Saudi Arabia and Pérez finished fourth, and at the recent race at the Melbourne circuit, Pérez made it to the podium, but Verstappen had to retire his car on lap 39.

The reason for the Red Bulls’ three retirements in the opening three Grands Prix is due to technical problems with the power unit or fuel system.

However, these retirements mean that Verstappen is currently 46 points behind championship leader Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari after the opening three races of the 2022 season. That makes the twenty-four-year-old Dutchman’s path to a title defence very difficult.

“Because the points gap between me and the championship leader is so big, it has to be us who will be in front from now on,” Verstappen said at the F1 press conference, also quoted by Motorsport.

“We have to be faster, which we are not at the moment. And we need to have a more reliable car, which we don’t have at the moment either, so there are a lot of things we need to work on,” he added.

Here are the standings for both the Drivers’ Championship and the Constructors’ Cup. Asked if Verstappen thinks he can defend his 2021 title this year, he said. “I don’t think so either. I don’t see any reason to believe that at the moment.”

However, with 20 races left in the season, anything can happen. But one thing is already certain – if Red Bull does not resolve the technical problems on its monoblocks soon, the chances of winning the title in both championships will slowly decline.

Ferrari is slowly but surely starting to pull away in both the Constructors’ Cup and the Drivers’ Championship. It should be noted, the Italian stable from Maranello already looked very strong in pre-season testing and in the opening races of the season they clearly demonstrated this.

The next race awaits Formula 1 fans in two weeks’ time at the Imola circuit, where the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will take place.

F1, Motorsport