Helmut Marko is aware that Red Bull have not been at their best operationally over the weekend in Austria. But he believes the biggest mistake was not warning Max Verstappen that he could let Lando Norris through, who is under investigation and faces an inevitable penalty for exceeding 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 tires in the last stint and we had used ones, which was also a factor. But I would say both drove unnecessarily too hard.”
“Maybe we can blame ourselves: we knew there was a track limits investigation going on. We knew Norris had crossed the lines too many times. We should have warned Max. I thought that action was completely unnecessary 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 really good fight at times until it kind of degenerated into a question of who was pushing who more, who was violating the limits of the track more, instead of focusing on a fair finish.”
