Marko still astonished by Verstappen's penalty: 'Others got away with it'

In his column for Speedweek, the Red Bull advisor had a deeper look at what happened last Sunday.

"I keep this view: the five-second time penalty for Max Verstappen cost him the victory. The speed to win was there," Marko began firmly.

He also explained that Verstappen could not only pull away from Piastri on the stint on the mediums, but could also gain after the pit stop. "But at the end of the race, Max simply couldn't get close enough to attack. Overtaking is immensely difficult in Formula 1 these days, especially when you're in the dirty air of the one ahead."

Red Bull chose not to hand Piastri back the position. Marko explains that is because the team believe the moment was a typical Lap 1 incident.

"Our strategy expert even referred to several similar situations in Formula 2, where at most a warning was issued. Luke Browning did it twice and remained unpunished," the top advisor explains.

The 81-year-old Austrian furthermore states that the footage of the incident does not show what exactly happened.

"The TV images were somewhat misleading: The first camera angle showed that Piastri was clearly ahead of Verstappen, but in the actual braking zone, Max was ahead again. We were therefore optimistic that it would remain unpunished and decided not to give back the position – although we obviously knew that, once behind Piastri, it would probably be impossible to get past him again," the Austrian concluded.