Marko expresses his view on Red Bull updates amid Perez's early SQ2 exit
Helmut Marko is feeling positive after the first day of action during the United States Grand Prix weekend. The external Red Bull Racing advisor reports the upgrades performed well. Verstappen will start the sprint from pole, but Perez will start from 11th place.
With the weekend in the United States being a sprint weekend, the teams only had one free practice session to set everything up properly for sprint qualifying later in the day. "After [practice] we were confident that we would be at the front over a single lap," the Red Bull consultant told ServusTV.
How is Marko feeling after day one in Austin?
"But we actually expected Ferrari to be the opponents," Marko said. This turned out not to be the case. George Russell qualified in second place and Charles Leclerc only in third. Carlos Sainz starts from fifth place.
The Austrian finds it difficult to make a prediction for the sprint race as there are no comparable times from the only free practice. He is very happy with the performance of the updated RB20 so far. "This is a very good start. The new parts on the car worked immediately, which is not obvious with only one practice," Marko said.
This article has been created in collaboration with Sandy van Wijngaarden
Looking like MB, RB and Ferrari found some improvements during the break. Ferrari looked very strong on the mediums, MB on the softs. MCL is difficult to judge. Could be the issue with their flexi wings, or their update was a step back, or perhaps the three other teams made a bigger jump in performance. But it could also simply be that MCL didn't get the setup right during the only FP. It's doing to be interesting to if this trend continues during the remaining weekend and during the upcoming races. Very interesting end of season ahead and hopefully, a great sign for next year.
Let's hope for an interesting end of the season! I'm tired of listening to Zak (sorry I can't stand the guy) and Andrea. Where is Toto? I haven't seen him in a while....I kinda miss him (ahaha). He seems to have become more sensible this year. Correlation is not causation... but one might think whether Lewis ' departure has had any effect.
Yeah Wolff has become pretty quiet lastly. I thought that, like Brown, he will jump on the story about RB's "cheating device", but nothing. MB is currently 4th, so he better stay quiet ? On a more serious note, I also feel that HAM's departure has something to do with it. Even more so considering he now what's VER in his team, so he better be kind. But it wouldn't be surprising if he's still working behind the scenes (hello Jos). After all he's still the same furbone. Regarding Brown, I always thought he was a nice guy, and he certainly still is deep inside. But started to go crazy in 2023, and even more so in this year. His team becoming successful made him lick blood and wants more. His lack of experience in handling a championship battle made him become mean. Stella on the other hand, difficult to tell. I feel like he's sitting in between of two chairs. On one side there's common sense, on the other side his boss along with his disgusting behavior (©Vegan). I haven't heard Stella this weekend regarding the allegations towards RB. Which is strange since he's officially the TP. Maybe Stella though that Brown is going too far, who knows. Anyway, it's going to be funny now Brown replacing Wolff. I wonder how both of them will react should MB and MCL get involved into a close championship battle next year. Could be highly entertaining ?
Yes, I agree. Even though I never liked Brown. He always looked to me like the know-it-all kind of person. Loud, obnoxious, styleless. Maybe the American outsider who doesn't really fit in a sport dominated by a stiff brit culture. Anyway, I think Jos is more amicable with Toto than Max will ever be. Toto's apology to Max for his behavior (or lack of) after Silverstone '21 is telling. But I believe that Toto's change of behavior has more to do with not having to defend Lewis' status all the time than to appeal to Max. And for that, I admire him. He will do everything to defend/elevate his drivers. I am sure that Antonelli will find himself in a very supportive environment next year.
Yeah, I agree, ANT will be in good hands. I'm only a bit scared about how RUS will react to it.
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