Marko hopeful after disappointing session for Red Bull in Abu Dhabi

As usual, Helmut Marko is one of the last to walk out of Red Bull Racing's garage. It has been a difficult session for Red Bull Racing, but Helmut Marko has hope. In front of a small group of media, including GPblog, Marko explains why there is still confidence at Red Bull after a dramatic FP2.

Marko holds out hope for good result

''Not the same problem (as in Qatar), but if we can turn it around as we did there, it will be fine,'' Marko begins in Abu Dhabi. ''The car shows beautiful potential but lacks balance. The tires and the operating window for performance are small. The temperatures made it hard to balance the rear and front.''

Max Verstappen had a problem with the engine, but Marko said that was the easiest to fix. However, the Dutchman made more problems known over the board radio: ''He was mostly concerned about the lack of front-end grip.'' However, that was not the only problem: ''When you're so far back, it's not just one problem.''

The longruns were better, Marko insisted, but still not competitive. ''If we can adjust the car to the right window, the situation could improve, as it did in Qatar. However, the challenges here seem slightly less severe than in Qatar.'' In that respect, Marko also concluded positively, because after all, in Qatar, where the challenge was thus greater, the team also managed to turn it around: ''It’s nice to believe that we can achieve the same turnaround here.''

In Qatar, the first few days also went horrible for Red Bull Racing. Then, Red Bull failed to come up to scratch in sprint qualifying and the sprint race, leaving Max eighth in the sprint race. A few hours later, however, the team had found a new setup for qualifying that worked. For Red Bull, it is to be hoped that they can manage that again now.