After the close of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz reported spying a heated discussion taking place between Raymond Vermeulen, Max Verstappen’s manager, and Helmut Marko.

While PlanetF1.com clarified that the conversation wasn’t as fierce as Kravitz initially reported, the pundit further delved into the subject on The F1 Show podcast.

Max Verstappen manager supposedly miffed at Red Bull pit stops

The Bahrain Grand Prix highlighted the ongoing weaknesses currently plaguing Red Bull Racing.

Both drivers of the once-dominant team reported issues with balance, grip, brakes, and tyre degradation, which left Max Verstappen – winner of the Japanese Grand Prix the previous weekend – finishing a lowly sixth place.

The real issues seem to extend beyond the on-track performance of the RB21, though. The team has reported that the data they’ve been gathering in the wind tunnel has not been correlating to the car’s actual performance during a race weekend.

As such, when Red Bull turns up at a Grand Prix, it’s doing so on the back foot when compared to teams who have already begun to accumulate data based on what they’ve learned in the wind tunnel. Each session then becomes a race against time to gather the required information to develop a competent race day strategy.

On top of this, Red Bull faced several disastrous pit stops in Bahrain, with the release lights failing for both Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda, followed by an issue with the right-front of Verstappen’s car in his second stop.

While Red Bull did note that it was operating with a partially substitute pit crew in Japan, the problems carrying over into Bahrain were particularly painful.

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It was in this atmosphere of tension that Kravitz reported spying Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen giving Helmut Marko “a piece of his mind.”

PlanetF1.com understands that Red Bull did not believe it to be a worrisome confrontation, but Kravitz shared more detail about the encounter on The F1 Show, Sky Sports’ in-house Formula 1 podcast.

“I’ve seen plenty of times where Raymond Vermeulen or Jos Verstappen and Christian Horner and Helmut Marko who have been discussing situations,” Kravitz said, “but Raymond seemed particularly irked about something which I think was actually the pit stop problems.”

After noting that he and co-host Simon Lazenby had both declared Verstappen back in the World Championship fight after Japan, things looked much different in Bahrain.

Kravitz explained, “Red Bull would have known from testing that they weren’t as quick as the McLarens, and actually not as quick as the Mercedes as well. So there were pretty much no surprises.

“I think what the Verstappens were annoyed about — what Raymond Vermeulen was annoyed about; and Max said this as well — was that when everything isn’t so great on the car, at least we need to have good pit stops and good operational.

“And actually, if you could the slow pit stop that Max had in Japan that put him into contact with Lando Norris when Lando went on the grass, and then you count light number 1 not working for Max, light number 2 not working for Yuki, and then front right not working for Max in his second stop in Bahrain — that’s four pit stop problems that Red Bull have had in two races, and that’s very unusual.”

In the race’s aftermath, many fingers have been pointed at Jonathan Wheatley, the former sporting director of Red Bull Racing who has recently secured a role as team principal at Sauber. Kravitz touched on the subject, too — albeit with some skepticism.

“Probably the electronics in the pit stop traffic light system don’t know that Jonathan Wheatley is now the Sauber team principal and has left,” he said.

“”Jonathan Wheatley didn’t spend his evenings making sure the reprogramming of the traffic light system in the pit stops is working.

“It’s probably nothing on the front right that Jonathan Wheatley could have done. It’s a coincidence.

“It did cost Max and Yuki one place each; I think that’s what was said at the time on the commentary. Max was stuck behind Esteban Ocon for a while, and Yuki was stuck behind Isack Hadjar although got past him quite quickly.”

Co-host and former strategist Bernie Collins wondered aloud if Red Bull had had to change something in its pit stop equipment, or if the pit crew was still suffering from the loss of some key personnel.

But overall, Kravitz insisted that Vermeulen exchanged some feisty words with Marko. Heading into the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend, the ongoing Red Bull saga — and Verstappen’s potential dissatisfaction of the team — will be one of the key talking points.

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