Verstappen retired in the opening stages of the last race in Melbourne after his brakes overheated – with it appearing that the pad had jammed on to the disc because of an issue related to the caliper.
While there has been no detailed explanation from Red Bull about what exactly happened to trigger the failure, various theories have emerged.
One idea is that the culprit was the failure of the team to tighten a screw that was critical to the brake caliper operating correctly.
Verstappen added credence to that idea at Suzuka on Thursday when he suggested that it was more a procedural problem than a design fault.
“It wasn't really a problem in the end, but you have to secure it properly, of course,” he said. “The procedures will be changed a bit to make sure it doesn't happen again.”
Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan has explained, however, that the situation was more complicated.
He said that it involved a chain of events that had potentially kicked off as early as when extra work was required following Verstappen’s off in FP1.
Source: Autosport