Helmut Marko outlines major Red Bull difference in ‘everything is possible’ declaration

Helmut Marko believes Red Bull could fight for several more victories between now and the season’s end, following Max Verstappen’s win at Monza last weekend.

The Dutch driver took pole position and a dominant win at the Italian Grand Prix, showing a clean pair of heels to the pursuing McLarens through the weekend at the Monza circuit.

Helmut Marko: Red Bull technical team ‘more open’ at Monza

Red Bull’s win at Monza was the first for the Milton Keynes-based squad since the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the start of summer, and the first Grand Prix win under Laurent Mekies since the French engineer replaced former team boss Christian Horner.

Monza had been a very difficult race for Red Bull in 2024, with Verstappen only managing sixth, but there were no signs of weakness at all this year as the RB21 proved the car to beat around the fast Italian venue.

Speaking after his win, Verstappen revealed that he hadn’t felt like a “passenger in the car”, as he has throughout most of this season, and indicated he had taken a different approach to setting up the car than is usual.

“Up until now, we’ve had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the setup of the car,” he said.

“Quite extreme changes, which show that we were not in control. We were not fully understanding what to do.

“With Laurent having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.

“Plus, you try to understand from the things that you have tried, that at one point, some things give you a bit of an idea of a direction, and that’s what we kept on working on.

“I definitely felt that in Zandvoort, we already took a step that seemed to work quite well, and then here another step which felt again a little bit better.”

A jubilant Helmut Marko said it was clear that the feedback from Verstappen had been listened to more by the engineers in the garage, saying it was only right that his opinions on where to take the car were taken on board.

“The engineers are listening more to the driver,” he said.

“If you have such a fast and experienced driver, I think that’s the right way.

“He has to drive it, and it was important that our top speed is improving, which we saw we could go away or drive away from the McLarens. And also some other changes, the driver’s input was recognised.

“The whole technical team is more open to discussing things, and they are not blindly taking what the simulation says.”

While Mekies downplayed his part in the victory, explaining that he had “zero contribution” when asked to assess it by PlanetF1.com, Marko singled out the new team boss for praise.

“The difference is that the preparation is a different one,” he said.

“Laurent is an excellent engineer. So it’s more based on data than whatever the simulation is showing you.

“But mix it with the experience like Max has, or the experience our racing engineers have, make a car which is predictable and drivable, that’s the product.

“Basically, it’s the same. Okay, some updates were coming and they were working, but 20 seconds on McLaren, I wouldn’t have predicted that.”

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Helmut Marko: Everything is possible from here

Verstappen’s win reduces his deficit in the World Championship to 94 points with eight Grands Prix weekends left, including three Sprint races.

A successful defence of his Drivers’ Championship crown is still very unlikely, despite the extent of his Monza win, with the four-time F1 World Champion explaining that the circuit had played to the strengths of the RB21.

“I think it’s still a bit track-dependent,” he said.

“Here you drive low downforce. It always seems like our car is a little bit more competitive when it’s low- to medium-downforce.

“So it’s not like suddenly now we are back. It’s not like we can fight, I think, every single weekend.

“But the positive is that we seem to understand a little bit more what we need to do with the car to be more competitive.

“So I hope that that carries on into the coming rounds as well, and some tracks will be a bit better than others.”

But Marko was a little more optimistic than Verstappen, saying he believes more victories are possible.

“I said in Budapest, we knew what we did wrong. Unfortunately, we couldn’t change it anymore,” he said.

“But in Zandvoort, it showed that our direction we were going is the right one. Zandvoort was never, ever our circuit.

“We were lucky with second, but third was a secure place for us, and we developed from there.

“Last year, we were 20 or 40 seconds behind the winner, and had a monster.

“Baku is a fast circuit, I’m very optimistic.

“High hopes for Singapore, the only race we didn’t win so far, normally on slow circuits.

“But I believe now everything is possible with this period.”

With Verstappen having whetted his appetite this year with non-F1 appearances, including a GT3 test at the Nurburgring and a race outing at the Nordschleife this weekend, Marko joked that his driver has even gone back to being quiet about his extra-curricular racing.

“Max is motivated like I haven’t seen him for a long time,” he said.

“Now, he’s not even talking about GT!”

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