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Marko feared for Verstappen at Dutch Grand Prix

Marko feared for Verstappen: 'The gap to Norris would've even more drastic'

29 August at 06:00
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  • Jeroen Immink

Helmut Marko believes Max Verstappen squeezed out the maximum at the Dutch Grand Prix. The Austrian acknowledges that McLaren and Lando Norris were too strong for Verstappen and Red Bull. In his traditional column for SpeedWeek, Marko explains.

According to Marko, Verstappen still managed to keep the damage reasonably low. "At Zandvoort, we reached the maximum because McLaren was a class apart with Lando Norris. You could see that at the end, when Max Verstappen crossed the finish line 22.8 seconds behind. And if Lando had won the start, it would have been even more drastic," Marko revealed.

Marko surprised by number of overtaking manoeuvres

Marko did not expect that on the twisty Zandvoort circuit, so many overtaking manoeuvres would happen. "Before the race, given the previous GP at Spa, I thought overtaking at Zandvoort would be almost impossible. Therefore, I assumed that if Max won the start, there was a chance to win the race," Marko said initially.

"But there were relatively many overtaking manoeuvres, for example by Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri. Norris also passed Max Verstappen on the 18th lap when Max's tyres went flat and the usual problem occurred and the car went from understeer to oversteer. This made it impossible to maintain Norris' times," the Austrian added.

Marko thanks Leclerc for holding back Piastri

Because of Norris' speed, Marko felt Verstappen could still be overtaken by Piastri. But Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc played a crucial role in the closing stages of the race, according to the Red Bull advisor. "We were also worried that Piastri would catch Max too, because he was very fast. But then, thank God, he was stuck behind Charles Leclerc. Why that was the case is not entirely clear to me, because he was a second faster than Max before he ran into Leclerc and did not pass him. We are very grateful to Leclerc for stopping him!".

This article has been written in collaboration with Matt Gretton