Schumacher: Red Bull is “destroying itself from within”
We’ll start the day with a bit of drama, because expert Ralf Schumacher has at Sky explains that in his opinion the current situation at Red Bull is “highly critical”.
The world champion team is “destroying itself from the inside,” fears the six-time Grand Prix winner and warns: “If Christian Horner holds on to his seat with all his might, he will damage Red Bull.”
In addition, his retaliation will also ensure that “Max Verstappen leaves the team,” believes Schumacher, who explains that Toto Wolff is “relatively happy” about the whole thing as an onlooker.
The Mercedes team boss could “exit the matter as a big winner,” said Schumacher. Because if things really go wrong at Red Bull, world champion Max Verstappen could end up at Mercedes.
Famin: Performance in Bahrain “unacceptable”
Alpine team boss Bruno Famin made it clear that he knew that the start of the season was a complete failure. When asked if he had pressure from Renault’s top management, he replied: “We don’t need anyone putting pressure on us to know that this is not acceptable.”
However, he also clarifies: “That was only the first race. […] The car is new, we have to develop it further. I’m quite optimistic that we can get out of this position, which was really, really bad.”
The whole team is working on this, which is why he makes it clear: “I think we have put ourselves under pressure and we know very well that we have to improve, and quickly.” But he doesn’t know how long that will take.
Let’s see how much time he gets. Because Alpine isn’t exactly known for being particularly patient when things don’t go as hoped…
Harsher penalties for track limits?
Anyone who violates the track limits too often during the race currently receives a five-second penalty. In Formula 3 this season it is now even ten seconds. Would this also be conceivable for Formula 1?
“It sounds pretty hard,” ponders Charles Leclerc, emphasizing that as a driver you can hardly see the white line from the cockpit. “I have the feeling that five seconds is pretty intense,” he emphasizes.
“In my opinion, ten seconds is too long,” he clarifies, and George Russell also explains: “It’s difficult to understand on television how difficult it is in the car. You sit so low that you can only see the top 15 centimeters the tire sees.”
He would therefore like to see more real curbs so that the driver can even notice where the route ends.
Time schedule
From the stream plan to today’s schedule: It will be relevant to sport at 2:30 p.m. (FT1) and 6:00 p.m. (FT2) our time. Friends of the soap opera can also set their alarm clock for 4:30 p.m.
Then the team bosses will have a press conference with the following guests:
Bruno Famin (Alpine)
Mike Krack (Aston Martin)
Christian Horner (Red Bull)
James Vowles (Williams)
Sports or soap opera?
Hello and welcome to a new edition of our Formula 1 live ticker. The first two training sessions are scheduled for today in Saudi Arabia, but the sporting events in the premier class are currently taking a back seat.
So you get the feeling that the team bosses’ press conference arouses almost more interest among many observers than the action on the racetrack. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner will be one of the guests there in the afternoon.
Whether sport or drama: here in the ticker we will of course provide you with the most important voices, pictures and information directly from Jeddah until late in the evening!
Ruben Zimmermann will accompany you through the day today and if you have any questions, suggestions or complaints you can use our contact form. You can also find us on Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube, and if you have any questions, you can also use our X-Hashtag #FragMST. Here we go!