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Red Bull was unhappy with the removal of the 4th DRS section from Turn 8 to Turn 9 of the Albert Park circuit. The Australian GP was supposed to feature 4 DRS zones on the track. Safety objections raised by the drivers and the teams, led by Alpine and Fernando Alonso, however, resulted in the removal of the additional zone.
Red Bull was quite vocal against the removal of the DRS zone. Reigning world champion Max Verstappen pointed out that the DRS stretches were much worse in Jeddah but still no objections were raised there. Speaking about the removal of the DRS zone, Verstappen said:
“I don’t really understand why they took it away. It was much safer than what we do in Jeddah, for example. So it’s a bit of a mystery to me why that happened.”
Much more critical was Dr. Helmut Marko, who is Red Bull's advisor. He made scathing remarks against Alpine, suggesting that the French team spearheaded the talks for the removal of the DRS zone.
Marko said:
“Alpine couldn’t drive through these sections with DRS. So they wanted to make it disappear. It’s strange that decisions like this are made because only one team wants it.”
Red Bull was disadvantaged by the removal of the DRS section
Red Bull was particularly disadvantaged by the removal of the DRS zone. It was in that particular straight where Red Bull held an advantage over Ferrari as the Italian outfit was experiencing extreme porpoising there. With the DRS wing open, it only increased with the porpoising phenomenon. Even Charles Leclerc had mentioned the same over the weekend when he said:
“We have a lot of bouncing. It was pretty tricky with the wing open.”
Dr. Helmut Marko revealed that the removal of the DRS worked against it as it also reduced the number of overtaking options during the race as well. He said:
“This is definitely a disadvantage for us. We just have to see where and when we can overtake now without being immediately overtaken again.”
The race, as it turns out, was one-way traffic with Ferrari in a league of its own as Charles Leclerc ran away for the win. Max Verstappen had no answer for the Ferrari as Leclerc was able to pull away in the race at close to half a second per lap. In the end, none of that mattered as Verstappen suffered his second retirement of the season in Australia.
