Red Bull had a difficult race in Bahrain, with both of Max Verstappen’s pit stops being much slower than usual. This cost him a lot of time and made it harder for him to fight at the front.

His first stop came on lap 11, but even though the team changed his tyres quickly, he couldn’t leave the pit box straight away. The red light on the pit gantry didn’t turn green, even though there were no cars coming. Because of that, Verstappen had to wait, and he rejoined the race in 17th place on hard tyres.

His teammate Yuki Tsunoda had a similar problem during his first pit stop. Like Verstappen, he was held in the pit box by the light system, even though the stop itself was fine. Tsunoda was clearly frustrated, shouting on the team radio, “Yellow was flashing, man. Oh my god!”

Verstappen’s second stop on lap 26 was even slower. This time, he also had a small problem with the right-front wheel, and he ended up stopped for over six seconds. After the second issue, the team decided to stop using the automatic system and switched to a manual release, where the chief mechanic gave the signal instead of the light.

READ MORE: ‘Alarming’ Bahrain GP performance forces Red Bull to react

After the race, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner explained that the problem was caused by an issue with the wiring in the pit gantry. He said that the lights didn’t work properly, even though the mechanics had done their job. Because drivers rely on the light to know when it’s safe to leave, both Verstappen and Tsunoda had to wait longer than they should have.

"We had a horrible day with what looks like a wiring loom issue in the pit gantry, which caused the problems with the traffic lights," said Horner, quoted by RacingNews365.

"It is certainly one that I've never seen before and the drivers live by those traffic lights, but the actual stops were pretty good, they were two seconds.

"But then the drivers were waiting for the lights, and obviously it didn't go out, so everything has gone into quarantine and we'll have a good look at it. 

"The first stop where Max came in, the light didn't [go out], and it is a very simple system so we expected that one of the buttons hadn't been pressed hard enough by the mechanic, but the next pit stop was within a minute.

"Then it happened again and at that point, we went into a manual override system, and the chief mechanic released the cars."

Even though the team had a tough day, Verstappen managed to finish sixth thanks in part to a mid-race Safety Car, which helped limit the damage. Tsunoda also secured points, his first for Red Bull, after finishing ninth. Still, Red Bull wasn't happy with the performance, with Helmut Marko labeling it 'alarming'.