Formula 1: Power unit rankings after the engine freeze

Formula 1 power unit rankings: No. 2 – Red Bull Powertrains

Sunday’s race left many wondering what could have gone wrong for Red Bull to have such a tragic end to their first race of the season. An identical failure on both cars, the issue turned out to be with the low-pressure fuel pump, a spec part identical among all teams on the grid.

The third failure of a Red Bull power unit was the spectacular failure of Pierre Gasly’s MGU-K, which was unrelated to the issues of the Red Bulls but still a brow-raising concern over the reliability of the power unit.

After the race, it was discovered that Red Bull had been unable to complete a full race simulation or enough running on low fuel during testing to find the issue, which has been identified by the remainder of the grid.

The current working theory is that the new E10 fuel reaches abnormally high temperatures when running at low fuel loads, leading to the potential failure of components feeding fuel to the internal combustion engine.

With this being an issue for which they should hopefully find a permanent solution before round two in Jeddah, Red Bull Powertrains can still consider Bahrain a fixture of success after displaying a superior power advantage relative to the remainder of the grid.

With Max Verstappen able to make moves from nearly a full second back on the main straight with the help of DRS, the top-end speed of the Red Bull could only be described as ludicrous and should provide a noticeable difference at the high-speed Saudi Arabian street circuit.