Winning is one thing. Honesty and transparency are the other. For Red Bull chief advisor Helmut Marko (78) it is therefore important to keep emotions under control as well as possible and not get lost in the heated atmosphere, even after races that threatened to sink into chaos like the GP of Saudi Arabia to get carried away with false statements.
The data, which were later evaluated by the race stewards, however, gave Hamilton right. They clearly demonstrated that the Dutchman illegally got on the brakes in order to irritate the Briton driving close behind him. At ABMS, Marko now apologizes for his first statements: “At the time of the television interview, I passed on exactly the information that I had previously received from the engineers. Apparently they weren’t right, so I’m sorry. “
Dr. Helmut Marko
The F1 judges subsequently awarded the Red Bull driver a ten-second penalty, which, however, had no effect on the result. Because he had a sufficient lead over third-placed Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes), Verstappen was still classified in second behind winner Lewis Hamilton. Important for Verstappen: The Dutchman is going to the season finale in Abu Dhabi next weekend as World Cup leader despite having a tie with the seven-time world champion. Reason: The Dutchman has one more win (9) than his title competitor from Mercedes.
Alone: That could be the decisive factor for Verstappen in the World Cup duel, which is led to the limit. Reason: If neither of them scores a point, the Dutchman would be world champion for the first time. After the heated emotions, not a few expect that a collision could decide the title duel.
Marko doesn’t want to know anything about it: “Hopefully the sad chapter of Saudi Arabia has now closed. In any case, we’re just looking ahead. We want to win in Abu Dhabi and so win the title. We will do everything for this, but we will not take any unfair actions. In Saudi Arabia we already had the pace to keep up with Hamilton. The route in Abu Dhabi should be more accommodating to us. “
