Marko heard remarkable radio message at Imola GP: "That irritated him"

Marko on deciding factor and remarkable radio message

Before he could start the pursuit of Verstappen, Norris had to make his way past Sergio Perez after his pit stop. Asked if that could have cost the Briton a possible victory, Marko replied. "I don't think that was the decisive factor," he told the German branch of Sky Sports.

"The decisive factor was that we did well on the medium tyre and were slower than McLaren on the hard tyre. After two or three laps, the temperature dropped and the tyres got out of the right working window," the 81-year-old Austrian explained.

Another decisive factor was Max Verstappen. "Incredible performance by Max, who drove absolutely flawlessly," Marko said. "Luckily Norris made a few mistakes when he was chasing Max, preventing him from getting into the DRS zone."

With the McLaren driver, Marko heard a remarkable radio message, which he cannot imagine helped Norris in his attempts to snatch victory from Verstappen. "It was an interesting radio message from his engineer. He was driving at the absolute limit and then he was told to push even harder. That probably irritated him. That's quite negative for concentration in a situation like this," said the Red Bull advisor.