Red Bull are already miles behind, rues Verstappen

LONDON • Max Verstappen has said two things need to happen for him to have a chance of retaining his Formula One title and Red Bull are not managing to do either at the moment.

The Dutchman gave his verdict after suffering a second retirement in three races on Sunday at the Australian Grand Prix.

He is now a massive 46 points behind Ferrari's dominant winner Charles Leclerc.

"We are already so far down in the championship that from now onwards, basically, you first need to be faster than them (Ferrari), which we're not, and zero problems with the car, which we also don't have," said the 24-year-old.

"So it's going to be a big task."

Verstappen is sixth in the standings with 25 points, while Leclerc, winner of two out of the three races and runner-up in the other, is on 71 with a 34-point lead over closest challenger George Russell of Mercedes.

The biggest gap at the top in last season's championship was 32 points between Verstappen and Mercedes' seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton after Austria in July, with the pair going into the final round in Abu Dhabi level.

Leclerc has taken a bonus point for fastest lap in all three races and started twice on pole position in the best start to a season by a Ferrari driver since 2017, when Sebastian Vettel also racked up two wins and a second place.

The German did not win the title that year because Hamilton was always close behind, taking a win and two runner-up finishes in the first three rounds before coming back strongly.

Last season, Verstappen did not finish three times but none were attributed to mechanical failure, unlike this season.

With the next race being held at Ferrari's home Imola circuit in Italy, on top of the continued unreliability of Red Bull's car, alarm bells are ringing for Verstappen even though the season is only three grands prix in.

"It was just a terrible race, just no pace. I couldn't push because the tyres were just getting destroyed," he said.

"We are already miles behind so I don't even want to think about the championship fight at the moment. These sort of things, if you want to fight for the title, cannot happen."

Red Bull blamed a fuel system problem for the retirement in Bahrain and team boss Christian Horner believes Verstappen's failure in Melbourne might also be fuel-related. He said: "We can't accept DNFs (did not finishes) but we need to understand what the issue is and address it."

Meanwhile, Italian authorities said on Monday they had frozen a €100 million (S$148 million) Sardinian villa linked to Russian motor racing driver Nikita Mazepin and his oligarch father Dmitry.

An injunction has been filed against the Rocky Ram villa in Porto Cervo, which is located on the coast of the Italian island.

Nikita was sacked by the Haas F1 team last month after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Days later, he was added to a list of Russians sanctioned by the European Union, alongside his father, the owner and chairman of chemical giant Uralchem.

Subsidiary Uralkali was Haas' former sponsor until the deal was severed recently.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS