In the round-up: Sergio Perez admits Red Bull’s reliability is a concern after his team mate’s retirement yesterday.
In brief
Retirements costing us a lot of points – Perez
Max Verstappen’s retirement from yesterday’s Australian Grand Prix was the third time one of the two Red Bull cars has dropped out of a race with a technical problem over the first six races.
“It’s certainly a concern,” admitted his team mate Perez, who finished second. “We’ve lost a lot of points already in these first three races that in the end can make a huge difference in the championship. So we are obviously aware of it.
“All the team back home in Milton Keynes, here, are working flat out to try to come up with solutions. We don’t know exactly the issue on Max’s today. We will see. I’m sure we will turn things around and hopefully we can start again from zero when we go back to Europe.”
Super Formula season opens at Fuji
Reigning champion Tomoki Nojiri and Ryo Hirakawa shared the wins in Super Formula’s double-header season-opener at Fuji Speedway. Nojiri left with a two-point lead at the top of the standings over his fellow race winner.
Nojiri’s Mugen team mate Ukyo Sasahara had a weekend to forget, stalling on the grid at the start of both races.
Turn 15 of Rome track “like running through gravel” after asphalt breakup
Formula E drivers said that asphalt break-up on the wide, curving turn 15 hairpin in Rome was so severe it was almost undriveable by the end of the second race.
Robin Frijns, who came third despite several incidents at the hairpin, said that it was “like driving through the gravel because you hear the sand or whatever it is in the tyres and on the car and it feels really terrible, kind of like you’ve got different tyres.”
Double Rome race winner Mitch Evans said “I think it’s a lot of it’s the new tarmac they put down, that was a new patch. There’s another new patch at turn nine, which was breaking up slightly as well. I think they just don’t leave it long enough to set, the cars have a lot of weight and over time it just starts to break up.
“But yesterday I didn’t really notice it, today was horrendous. So I think if they’re going to do repairs, they just need to do it a lot earlier.”
Ticktum “not happy” after scoring first Formula E point
Dan Ticktum took his first Formula E world championship point in the second Rome race, following a penalty issued to Oliver Askew. However, speaking to RaceFans, he said that “Everything that did happen went wrong for me and all I did was just not crash so yeah, ok, maybe it’s good for the team to get a point, but I’m honestly not very happy at all.
“There was literally about 10 events in that race and every single one just didn’t go my way, you just couldn’t make it up.”
Quotes: Hazel Southwell
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On this day in motorsport
35 years ago today Nigel Mansell put his Williams on pole position for the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix