Marco: We can’t keep everyone

Red Bull has never spared money on paying employees and lures many specialists away from other teams because of higher salaries. Christian Horner has proudly said several times that Red Bull Powertrains employs more than two hundred former Mercedes engineers.

But when rivals took a similar approach to Red Bull, Helmut Marko was furious. In an interview with ORF, he said that other teams are offering to double the salaries of some Red Bull employees in an attempt to sign them to a contract.

Helmut Marko: “If you win constantly, your opponents want to take your team members. This is normal for Formula 1. But I am surprised by the amounts offered. We all operate within budgetary constraints, but our employees are paid twice as much as we pay and hold positions higher than us.

We can’t keep everyone, even after 17 years in the case of Adrian Newey and 19 years in the case of Jonathan Wheatley. They were an important part of our team, part of our success. It always hurts when such people leave. But it’s all about money and career opportunities. If you cannot offer this within your team, offers will always come from outside.”