Dr. Helmut Marko’s gaffes explored – Formula One is becoming ever more of a slick corporate operation. The drivers are media savvy and gone are the days when after a poor time on track, one competitor would come out and lambast their rival.

For Oscar Piastri there were moments when it looked as though his PR training would be forgotten when he stood alone and forlorn after a ten second penalty at there British Grand Prix.

The Aussie’s heart felt radio message in Qatar after realising McLaren had made a huge strategic mistake, “I have no words” said the desperate Australian. Yet one individual remained in Formula One who was unfiltered and outspoken in Dr. Helmut Marko.

 

 

 

Marko tells drivers to ‘get Covid’

The Austrian has recently claimed his role was to be the eyes and ears observing the Red Bull F1 operations  but in reality he was a maverick who wandered the paddock saying what he pleased to all and sundry.

Team bosses and the drivers all have a PR lack glued to their trouser legs whenever they are saying anything which could be reported in the media. Not Dr. Marko. In fact Red Bull would discover what the Austrian had been blabbing about after it had been published.

Despite all his foibles, Marko will be missed by the media in particular, given Helmut had a penchant for saying completely the wrong thing at the wrong time. In 2020 he was reported as having the belief that Red Bull’s drivers should try to get infected with the Covid-19 virus before the start of the season so they could quickly recover and develop immunity.

At the time the extent of harm Covid could do was largely unknown, but as the killer nature virus became more obvious, Marko’s words were deemed highly insensitive. Such was the furore, Christian Horner was forced to downplay the incident describing it as Marko’s idea of a “throwaway comment before understanding the seriousness of the pandemic.”

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Ruthless with F1 rookies

The Red Bull consultant later claimed his comments were misinterpreted and he was not calling for anyone to be deliberately infected. This showed even Dr. Marko knew there was a line you couldn’t cross as he denied his well documented words.

Marko was often most at home on his pet subject of young drivers where we would wax lyrical about a Max Verstappen or an Arvid Lindblad. He would ruthlessly score rookie drivers whether from the Red Bull academy or in other teams rating the driver as a ‘B’ or ‘C’ in terms of talent.

Earlier this season Marko described Gabriel Bortoletto as a “B driver” stating he was intelligent and consistent but lacked “pure speed.” The Italian had won F3 and F2 categories, but Marko was dismissive of these results b ut he was proved long as Bortoletto found his stride against a quick and experienced team mate in Nico Hulkenberg.

Before Nyck de Vries was sacked after just ten Grand Prix weekends in his first full season, Marko went public on a dispute he and Christian Horner had over the young Dutch driver. He grudgingly admitted the Red Bull boss had been right to doubt De Vries calibre implying he himself had made a wrong call.

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Marko poor decisions over driver lineups

De Vries was sacked three races later. Then there was the disastrous decision to promote Liam Lawson alongside Max Verstappen at the start of the 2025 season when the much more experienced Yuki Tsunoda was expected to get the nod after Sergio Perez’s departure.

Marko pushed for the promotion of his academy driver over the experienced Tsunoda who was a Honda protege and likely to leave the team when his main sponsor switched allegiance to Aston Martin for 2026.

It wasn’t just Lawson who faced the ire of Dr. Marko in 2025 but his latest rookie from the Red Bull academy was lambasted at race one of the season in Melbourne. Isack Hadjar crashed his Racing Bull in wet conditions on the formation lap for the Australian GP and returned to the pit lane in floods of tears.

In an interview with ORF, Marko said: “Isack Hadjar did a little bit of crying after his crash. That was a bit embarrassing.” The Austrian’s harsh words were set in juxtaposition to the comments of Lewis Hamiltn’s father, Anthony, who reflected the feelings of the paddock when he said: “When I saw it happen, my heart just sank for him.”

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FIA reprimand Marko over racist views

“Not just for him, for his parents, for everything they’ve done to work hard to get to this one point, and it’s like it’s snatched from you. I just felt terrible for him, so I thought ‘you know what, I need to go and tell this kid keep your head high, walk tall, you’re gonna come back’. I think he’s a phenomenal driver. I think there’s more to come from Isack than we probably have seen this weekend”.

Having announced his departure from Red Bull Racing, Marko then proceeded to launch a scathing attack on the team’s former boss Christian Horner. Despite his words being recorded on TV, he claimed Horner had spread lies about him, claiming he had made racist comments about Sergio Perez.

Yet the comments in 2024 were not only recorded and widely reported, the FIA decided it would be appropriate to sanction Marko for his stereotypical race profiling which suggested Perez was lazy because he came from Latin America. 

The FIA issued a formal reprimand to the Austrian with a spokesman telling Sky F1: “We can confirm that Helmut Marko has received a written warning and been reminded of his responsibilities as a public figure in motor sport in line with the FIA Code of Ethics.”

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Antonelli in the firing line

Then for his swan song, Marko couldn’t help himself casting aspersions against Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli during the penultimate race weekend of the season. Having battled to keep Lando Norris behind him for around fifteen laps on tyres 12 laps older than the McLaren driver, Antonelli made a mistake on the final lap as the grip disappeared to allow the McLaren driver through into fourth place.

When quizzed after the race Marko said: “It was twice where he more or less waved Lando by. It was so obvious. Antonelli now helps our main competitor, in Austria he was crashing [Verstappen] in the rear.” Red Bull were forced to issue a statement exonerating Kimi Antonelli, although the carefully worded paragraphs did not offer an apology.

Now Dr. Marko is gone, along with Christian Horner as F1 enters a new era where the team bosses are more often now engineers. Gone is the drama and noise for which Red Bull racing made itself famously known and with Marko gone, the PR team can breath a huge sigh of relief.

 

 

 

F1 calendar crisis as races fall away and new promoters dry up

The global image of Formula One is that of a runaway success as the sport continues to grow from strength to strength. Next season will see the first new circuit added since Las Vegas back in 2023, although rumours that Madrid is behind schedule continue to circulate.

Yesterday it was announced that Portimao in Portugal will return to the F1 schedule for a two year run in 2027/8. Yet the pipeline once brimming with hopeful promoters brandishing unlimited cheques appears to be running somewhat dry.

As is often the case in modern F1, the Portuguese Grand Prix is being underwritten by the government of the country and given the exorbitant fees to host such an event, the commitment for now is for just two years…. READ MORE