Shapeshifter Dr. Marko does an about turn – Love him or not, Dr. Helmut Marko has been a most influential figure during the twenty one years the Red Bull Racing team has been competing in Formula One. A long standing friend of the energy drinks empires late founder, Didi Mateschitz, the Austrian headed up the Red Bull driver development programme before the F1 team was a glint in the eye.
Born and raised in Austria, Dr. Marko completed his doctorate in law at the university of Graz before finding success I the late 1960’s in sportscar racing. He was a class winner in the 1970 24 hours of Le Mans before progressing to the premier class the following year to claim the win at the famous day/night endurance race alongside Gijs Van Lennep.
Just two months later he debuted for Bonnier in Formula One driving a privately run McLaren M7C. Such was his talent he was recruited by works outfit BRM the following year but he was seriously injured during the 1972 French Grand Prix when he was hit my debris from the March car of Ronnie Peterson which pierced his visor leaving him blind in one eye.
A controversial F1 figure
Racing career over aged just 29, Marko moved into team and driver management, founding RSM Marko in 1989 which morphed into the Red Bull junior Team in 1999. He became and advisor to the Mateschitz owned Red Bull team in 2005 mentoring champions like Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen with his proteges winning a combined eight driver titles in twenty years along with some 125 Grand Prix.
Employed by the Red Bull Racing parent company, Marko has had the freedom to come ad go as he pleases with pretty much access all areas in Milton Keynes, also he is not restrained by the team’s media policy which regularly leads to his outspoken opinions causing embarrassment to team boss Christian Horner.
In recent times Marko’s young driver programme has failed to deliver, forcing Red Bull to recruit an experienced outsider like Sergio Perez to partner Max at the top table for four years. The 81 year old Austrian is highly opinionated and has the ear of a number of European F1 publications where his views are disseminated weekly.
Dr. Marko is a controversial figure who is regularly outspoken and was sanctioned by the FIA for remarks suggesting that drivers from Latin America had a cultural based lazy approach to racing. He was close to being excluded from the Red Bull garage last season following suspicions he was involved in a leak of confidential documents from an internal enquiry following allegations Christian Horner had behaved inappropriately with a female employee. The Red Bull team boss was eventually exonerated and claim was dismissed.
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Doomsday predicted by Marko pre-Jeddah
The Red Bull advisor enjoys a close relationship with Max Verstappen together with his father and manager, which in recent times has seen him come into conflict with decisions made by the Red Bull racing team. Prior to the recent Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Marko had suggested a release clause in the world champions contract with the team, which runs to 2028, cold be exercised as early as the upcoming F1 Sumer break in August.
He further made the bold claim that unless Verstappen made the podium in the next three Grand Prix, his title hopes would be finished with grave consequences for the Red Bull team. “The races in Jeddah and Miami will be really difficult for us,” he predicted the week before F1’s return to Saudi, “and if we want to stay in the title fight, we have to achieve a podium finish in the next three races.”
As it turned out, a small upgrade to the RB21’s beam wing together with further exhaustive setup experimentation from Verstappen in practice, saw Red Bull compete more closely with McLaren in Jeddah than had been the case in the first four GP weekends of the year.
Despite losing the lead of the race at the pitstops, Verstapen was able to bring it home just 2.5 seconds behind the Australian McLaren driver, a significant improvement from the 30 seconds plus deficit he suffered a week earlier to the race winner in Bahrain. Now Dr. Helmut Marko has returned to a less doomsday view of Red Bull’s upcoming races, predicting by Imola they will have a car super to their Woking based rivals.
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“Compared to Bahrain, we made a big progress,” Marko reports to Motorsport.com. “But also this circuit suits us better – faster corners and so on. We are moving forward and getting a car which is more predictable and is also working in a wider range.” This is somewhat of a U-Turn for the good doctor, given his earlier prediction that Jeddah “will be really difficult for us.”
Such has been the progress made by Red Bull, Dr. Marko believes in two races time they will be more than a match for the McLaren drivers. “We will have small steps, and I think by Imola we should be in a position that we also have the speed to beat the McLarens,” he optimistically declared.
Despite a controversial stewarding decision at turn one in Jeddah preventing Verstappen from taking the lead in the drivers’ championship, the 12 point deficit to Oscar Piastri is not something Marko believes to be of concern.
“Yes, that’s not worrying,” said the Austrian. “It won’t be easy, but we have proven that we can win the championship even if we are behind. I still remember, with Vettel we were more than forty points behind and still won the world championship.” The Red Bull advisor is referring to a 47 point lead Fernando Alonso had during the 2010 F1 season, which was eroded by Red Bull’s notorious ability to develop their cars during the season and some exceptional driving from their driver Sebastian Vettel.
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This year, Red Bull can count on the McLaren drivers taking points from each other weekly although currently it is Oscar Piastri who holds the upper hand over his team mate with three victories already this year to Lando Norris’ one.
“We prefer that one wins first and then the other, for a change. Piastri and Norris are unlikely to submit to team orders just like that. And that’s actually a great opportunity for us – for those two to compete with each other,” Marko said. With Max considered to be a once in a generation F1 talent, the infighting expected at McLaren could well play nicely into the Dutch champions hands.
Verstappen too was delighted with the result in Jeddah. “Despite everything in the race, getting P2 quite close behind Oscar was overall a positive weekend for us,” he noted after the race. “Of course, on tracks with higher degradation we still have more work to do, but we did well with the setup, the car went well and we had really good race pace.
“Especially after Bahrain, this was a good weekend to finish off the triple header and we just need to keep working and be as consistent as possible. It really has been a good and positive race and it is promising for the races ahead.”
The expected Imola turnaround
McLaren appear to have a car for all occasions and weather conditions, while Red Bull are yet to prove their RB21 is consistent across various track layouts, temperatures and levels of tyre degradation. Yet should Max deliver a similar close result in Miami where the heat will be stifling, then Red Bull will grow further in confidence that they can deliver their star driver a record fifth consecutive drivers championship.
Imola was bittersweet for Max and his team in 2024, because whilst he claimed the victory on Sunday, his car was clearly inferior to that of McLaren’s and Lando Norris who hounded him from start to finish. At a circuit famed as difficult to overtake, Verstappen’s remarkable pole position lap, setup the win for the world champion and this remarkable ability to find every last hundredth of a second in qualifying, may be the difference this year in deciding who is the champion driver in Formula One.
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