Helmut Marko: The fight has just begun

Max Verstappen is already 46 points behind Charles Leclerc after three Grands Prix, but Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko is confident that the team can bounce back…

Helmut Marko: Nothing is lost yet. Twenty Grand Prix until the end of the season. With Vettel, we were 44 points behind halfway through the season and still won. In the first two laps Ferrari and I were equal in speed, only in the Melbourne race we didn’t have a chance against Charles Leclerc. This has to do with the functioning of the tires and sub-optimal settings.

I told Max that there were 20 races ahead of me that could score more than 500 points, including Saturday’s sprint stages and the best lap of the race. The battle has only just begun.

Ferrari has a very reliable car, fast in all conditions. Especially when Leclerc is driving. This was already clear in the winter tests. Apparently you can immediately start working with rubber effectively. Our car is more difficult. We need much more time to find the right tire settings. But we’re working on it.

In addition, our car is heavier, at least ten kilos extra. And this is at least three tenths. This gives extra hope that we will regain those three tenths when we lose weight.

Last year we battled with Mercedes to the last for the championship title, which was very important for us. And the fact that Mercedes now has even more serious problems than we do suggests that we have done better.

Newer machines with less downforce are more suitable for some riders than others. At Ferrari – at Leclerc we have the opposite effect – Sergio Perez is now much closer to Max than in 2021. As a rule, Sergio is almost immediately satisfied with the settings and Max has to get to work. He hasn’t found the optimal balance yet, he doesn’t have full confidence in the car yet. His aggressive driving style doesn’t quite suit the new cars.”