Red Bull face 'sloppy' accusation after Max Verstappen left fuming with car

Red Bull have been accused of being "sloppy" in their assembly of Max Verstappen's car after two breakdowns in three races.

The Formula 1 world champion has already won a race this season, but other than that his title defence has got off to a disastrous start. Mechanical issues forced him to retire from the other two races, meaning he failed to score points in Bahrain and Australia.

On both occasions he was running in second and was on track to score a large number of points. The Dutchman would still have been behind runaway leader Charles Leclerc in the drivers' standings, but the gap would have been much smaller than the 46-point deficit he already has to the Ferrari ace.

Verstappen's breakdown in Melbourne was caused by a fuel issue, which team adviser Helmut Marko would not talk about specifically but did refer to as "very complex". The racer was a touch less eloquent in his assessment after climbing out of the car, telling his team he could "smell weird fluid" and that the car had "s**t itself".

Red Bull have shown that their RB18 cars are certainly capable of keeping pace with the Ferraris, which should set up an enthralling battle for both F1 titles. However, it has been one-sided so far due to the relentless reliability issues – Sergio Perez was also forced to retire in Bahrain as his car also broke down.

Former F1 driver Marc Surer believes Verstappen is still capable of mounting a strong title defence, but has called on Red Bull to get their act together and cut out the "sloppy" mistakes which are costing them a lot a early-season points.

"With 23 races, it’s actually not that much," the retired racer told Formel1. "It sounds like a lot, it makes a bad impression, but on the other hand we have to