Although Max Verstappen still has the 2024 World Cup title in his own hands, Helmut Marko doesn’t want to rely on coming in second everywhere from now on
“It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough,” emphasized Helmut Marko after Max Verstappen’s second place in Singapore in an exclusive video interview on the Formula1.de YouTube channel. Because although the world champion scored important points in the drivers’ championship with P2.
But at the finish he was a good 20 seconds behind winner Lando Norris, who was sometimes around a second per lap faster in the first stint of the race. “If Norris takes nine-tenths to one second per lap off us, then that’s worlds apart,” emphasizes Marko.
“And don’t forget: in the second stint, Leclerc was just as fast as Lando or almost a touch faster. So for us, second place was almost like a victory and we are very happy that it was only seven points that Lando caught up.”
So Verstappen still has a 52-point lead going into the last six races of the season, which means that only he can win the title on his own merit this year. If he finishes second in every race (including Sprint) from now on, he will be world champion at the end of the year.
Marko: “Monza was more than a wake-up call”
Even if Norris were to win all the races, including the fastest lap, at the same time, the McLaren driver would be exactly one point behind after Abu Dhabi. However, Marko does not want to get involved in such calculations.
“Just relying on coming second is not good enough,” emphasizes Marko and explains: ‘Monza was more than a wake-up call.’ Verstappen only came sixth there, and Marko says he can’t remember the last time Red Bull had such a bad race.
“I can’t remember when we got it so wrong in terms of strategy, pit stops, speed, everything,” he emphasizes, adding: ”The car needs to have a wider operating window – not one where relatively small changes can completely change the performance.”
“Or if temperature differences of six or seven degrees also cause performance to collapse.“ In addition, ‘more speed and also more bandwidth are needed so that Max can attack. We know that he needs a car that ’bites’ at the front, as they say in English.”
How urgently does Red Bull need the new wind tunnel?
With the adjustments made to the underbody after Monza, it was already going in the right direction. “They have worked very, very hard and have gained certain insights. It wasn’t a completely new underbody, but parts of it were new,” explains Marko.
“But I think the deciding factor will be performance in Austin and there are a few other things coming,” he announces. However, the question is whether these parts will work as hoped? Because the correlation between wind tunnel and track has not always been good this year.
When asked, Marko confirmed: “A more modern wind tunnel would help. Our wind tunnel is a post-war model built by the British army. And of course it has its disadvantages, such as the outside temperature, it has very long distances, the warm-up time and all that.”
“We are no longer at the cutting edge by a long way. And I hope that our new wind tunnel will perhaps be able to go into operation as early as 2026,” says Marko. However, it will be some time before then – time in which Red Bull can no longer afford any major failures.
