Helmut Marko is aware that Red Bull was not at its best operationally over the weekend in Austria. But according to him, the worst mistake was not having warned Max Verstappen that he could let Lando Norris pass, then under investigation with an inevitable penalty for exceeding the track limits.
“The victory was lost for several reasons” explains the Austrian. “The fact that Verstappen’s second pit stop went wrong, Norris slipped in the DRS window as a result, and also our assumption that hard tires would be the best choice in hot weather, which was not the case .”
“The temperatures were lower, which meant Norris had new tyres in the last stint and we had used ones, which was also a factor. But I would say both of them drove unnecessarily hard.”
“Perhaps we can blame ourselves: we knew there was an investigation into track limits. We knew Norris had crossed the lines too many times. We should have warned Max. I thought this action was completely useless and he could have just finished behind him and won with the penalty for Norris.”
“But we didn’t know if he would be punished and how. In hindsight, we could have said: ‘OK, we let him go’. But let’s look on the bright side: we increased our lead in the championship, both in the constructors’ championship and in the drivers’ championship.”
Marko agrees with the Red Bull clan and accuses Norris of having gone further than his rival: “I think what Max did was more within the limits than what Lando did. But it was unnecessarily aggressive from both drivers.”
“Their fight was a very good battle at times until it sort of degenerated into a question of who pushed who the most, who violated the limits of the track the most, instead of focusing on an end fair play.”
