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Marko points to the stewards after Verstappen's penalty: 'Making example'
Max Verstappen has received two separate 10-second time penalties at the Mexico City Grand Prix after his battle with Lando Norris. Red Bull's external advisor, Helmut Marko believes these penalties were harsh, and also underlined what was his team's biggest issue this weekend.
Marko: 'Penalty was harsh'
"I think the second ten-second penalty was a very harsh decision, but you have to accept it, what the stewards are doing and that's it, but on the other side we had a problem on Friday, so we didn't have any long runs on this hard tyre or on the medium tyre, so if the race would have been normal the maximum would have been P3 or P4. So we just didn't have the speed," Marko told Viaplay after the race.
When asked about his team's pace, Marko immediately pointed out what was not favourable this weekend. "As I said our problem was the Friday we didn't have any running, we couldn't find solutions or experience, but I won't say it's our normal speed and we have to improve, that's clear," he continued. After serving his twenty seconds worth of penalties, Verstappen finished in P6, while Sergio Perez finished outside of the points.
According to the top advisor, Verstappen should not have done anything differently in his battle against Lando Norris. "No, I think with all these discussions about the incident in Austin, I think they tried to make an example, and as I said, it was too harsh, the two penalties," the Austrian concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Estéban den Toom
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