Helmut Marko lists issues Red Bull need to fix after Australian Grand Prix

Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko has said that there are three things that need fixing with the car at the moment as they try to find the happy balance of speed and reliability.

The RB18 has proven one of the quickest machines on the grid so far this season, but it has also shown itself to be a bit fragile with a double retirement in Bahrain and another retirement in Australia for Max Verstappen.

Such issues do not normally lend themselves to a title defence, then, and Verstappen will be hoping for a near-perfect record of finishes for the rest of the season if he is to win a second world championship.

Speaking after Melbourne, meanwhile, Marko spoke about three things that the team need to work on to be contenders for the entire campaign:

“There are two or maybe three different things at play,” he told Servus TV.

“Firstly, the reliability problems, which we hardly had last year, but the lag behind Ferrari was also alarming today.

“They just controlled the pace and did that without graining. If Max stepped on, Leclerc could react easily.

“We were negatively surprised by the speed of Ferrari. They had almost no graining and we already had after a few laps.

“Ferrari can find a good balance with the car more easily.

“We are clearly heavier than the Ferrari. I think we have a weight handicap of about 10 kilograms. Converted to lap time, that equates to about three tenths per lap.

“But lowering the weight is expensive. It’s, to start with, a financial issue and secondly it is also related to reliability, so it is a difficult split due to the budget ceiling. We are facing difficult times.”

Reliability, balance and weight appear to be what Marko feels the team need to address, but that’s hardly an overnight fix.

Even so, Red Bull