Marko Confirms Red Bull's Balance and Consistency

Red Bull’s latest developments prove effective, bringing enhanced balance and consistency, confirms Marko.

Red Bull’s most significant upgrade of the season “does what it’s supposed to do,” stated Dr. Helmut Marko, the team’s advisor, following free practice 1 and 2 in Hungary yesterday.

Indeed, Max Verstappen – equipped with the full upgrade, including the engine cover and side pods, unlike his teammate Sergio Perez – was a quarter of a second slower than Lando Norris and his McLaren.

However, Marko commented at the Hungaroring, “Max is not yet fully satisfied, but we have not run the engine at full power, so we could have clocked a better time. On the long runs, we were the fastest.”

“We are already noticing a difference compared to the other updates we had. Those updates were much smaller and had little effect.”

“This time, there was more balance, more consistency so there is less understeer and oversteer, and thus the car is not all over the place.”

“But with the rules we have now, we are nearly at the ceiling in terms of development.”

Marko added that he was not overly concerned that Norris finished Friday with the best time.

“Firstly, McLaren pushed their engine to the max and we did not. And secondly, Max made a mistake in turn 2.”

He revealed that Perez had “90 percent” of the upgrade in place on the sister car, just a few tenths off Verstappen’s pace.

When asked why Perez was suddenly back on pace as rumours swirl about his immediate future at Red Bull, Marko smiled: “He told me he just came back from vacation. Apparently, that helped.”

Meanwhile, Ferrari’s new floor seems to have eliminated the bouncing issue, though Charles Leclerc’s streak of bad luck continued with a crash during practice.

“After Monaco, people joked they had jumped into the harbour after their win there but had never resurfaced,” joked Marko.

“But the track seems to suit them here. We have four teams on an equal footing.”