Red Bull suffer 'brutal' double DNF | Max: It shouldn't happen

Max Verstappen was critical of Red Bull's reliability woes after his team confirmed both their retirements from the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix were caused by suspected fuel pump issues.

World champion Verstappen was heading for second behind race-winner Charles Leclerc when he retired with three laps remaining after losing power, before team-mate Sergio Perez appeared to suffer the same fate from third place on the final lap.

The failures left Leclerc to lead a Ferrari one-two from Carlos Sainz, with Lewis Hamilton picking up a surprise podium for off-the-pace Mercedes ahead of his new team-mate George Russell in fourth.

"Of course you can always say problems can happen and you might have a retirement," Verstappen said. "But I think at this level, after already having so much information with engines and stuff, it shouldn't happen.

"We already lost a lot of points again in one race weekend, so that's just really not good, but of course I know that with one retirement it's not over, but I would have preferred to have 18 points."

Red Bull had entered qualifying on Saturday as favourites for the weekend, with Verstappen having appeared to have more pace than the Ferraris in the final stages of testing last weekend and at practice earlier this week in Bahrain.

Despite it emerging that it was in fact Ferrari who carried a slight advantage, missing out on a significant points haul had appeared an unthinkable prospect for Red Bull.

"A brutal finish to that race for us," Horner told Sky Sports F1. "What looked like a decent haul of points suddenly evaporated in the last couple of laps.

"It looks like a similar issue on both cars. We don't know exactly what it is yet, whether it's a lift pump, whether it's a collector or