Helmut Marko hints that he could retire from Formula 1 if Max Verstappen decides to leave Red Bull one day
It was probably one of the most powerful moments in an interview that, since it was published on various channels, has been seen by more than 100,000 people and cited by media outlets around the world. A moment with a prehistory that begins on March 11, 2025, at Salzburg’s Hangar-7.
The sports and talk show Sport und Talk is recorded at Hangar-7 every Monday by the private broadcaster ServusTV. And one week before the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season, former Grand Prix driver Christian Klien and Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko are invited as guests.
At the end of the show, host Christian Nehiba conducts a kind of quick-fire round of questions. He starts sentences and asks his guests to complete them. One such sentence is: “I can’t imagine life without Formula 1…” And most viewers would probably have expected Marko to add something like “I can hardly imagine it” or something similar.
Instead, the 81-year-old says: “… I can imagine.” And he adds: “Not well, but I have a wide range of interests. I don’t think about Formula 1 all the time. When I’m there, that’s the focus. But life offers you so much else.” If there is one dream he still wants to fulfill in his life, it is to “have more time,” says Marko.
To make a big retirement story out of this would be journalistic hyperbole. However, from an outsider’s perspective, it seems reasonable to suggest that Marko can imagine a life without Formula 1 better than he could a few years ago.
In the interview on the Formula1.de YouTube channel, recorded on the morning of March 28, 2025, the last question is: “Will Dr. Marko also stop with Formula 1 if Max Verstappen no longer drives for Red Bull at some point?” Marko thinks for a moment, glances away from the webcam lens on the desk in his office, and then answers: “That could be a good reason, yes.”
What this specifically means for his personal plans for the future is probably known only to Marko himself. But since the death of his close friends Niki Lauda in May 2019 and Dietrich Mateschitz in October 2022 and the internal friction with Christian Horner, which Marko has always relativized in interviews, it seems likely that it is above all the close relationship with Max Verstappen that keeps him in Formula 1 at the age of 81.
Should Verstappen decide to leave Red Bull (which at least outsiders like McLaren CEO Zak Brown or Sky expert Ralf Schumacher have recently outlined as a realistic possibility), Marko would probably also consider this to be the natural end of his time at the highest level of Formula 1. Even if it is important to emphasize in this context that he himself hopes to successfully accompany Verstappen in Red Bull cars for a long time to come.
Marko had performed his role as advisor to Red Bull’s global motorsport program with Mateschitz on a handshake basis for many years. After Mateschitz’s death, a contract was drawn up for the first time. This originally ran until the end of 2024 – and was only extended last year until the end of 2026.
As part of this extension, a long-kept secret additional agreement was also included in the internal Red Bull contracts, which had originally given Verstappen the right to prematurely terminate his contract with Red Bull, which runs until 2028, should Marko no longer be a motorsport consultant there. By Marko making a binding commitment not to leave Red Bull before the end of 2026.
The assumption that Helmut Marko’s illustrious career in Formula 1 will end on the day Max Verstappen leaves Red Bull seems quite plausible. At least as of today, at the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season.
