{"id":246185,"date":"2025-10-28T11:16:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T11:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/246185\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T11:16:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T11:16:12","slug":"the-moment-helmut-marko-started-believing-max-verstappens-f1-title-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/246185\/","title":{"rendered":"The moment Helmut Marko “started believing” Max Verstappen’s F1 title chances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expectations within Red Bull<\/a> were split on Saturday evening at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez<\/a>. Team advisor Helmut Marko stated that the RB21 was run too low in terms of ride height during qualifying, causing the car to bottom out in Turn 9, but he insisted it wouldn\u2019t be a handicap in the race. The Austrian still believed a podium was within reach for Max Verstappen<\/a> from fifth on the grid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reigning world champion himself strongly disagreed. When told about Marko\u2019s optimism during the Dutch media round in the paddock, Verstappen replied: \u201cNo, the car just doesn\u2019t work. And it won\u2019t work tomorrow either. Let\u2019s just leave it at that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marko told Verstappen to \u201cthink positive\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next day, Verstappen was back on the podium in Mexico City. When Motorsport.com pointed out that his prediction had come true, Marko laughed: \u201cYes, you see?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Normally, the 82-year-old Austrian would make a bet on such occasions, but in Mexico, no one at Red Bull was even willing to take him up on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, nobody wanted to bet with me, so it’s not fun. Nobody believed in that.\u201d That included Verstappen himself, Marko added: \u201cI also told Max this morning, you have to think positive.\u00a0And you saw what’s possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marko reiterated that ride height played a key role, adding: \u201cBasically, we were too low in qualifying, but if you are driving with full tanks, you don’t go so quick through the corners.\u00a0And the downforce is not the same, so this touching wasn’t there anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Hector Vivas \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Soft-tyre stint \u201ctypical Verstappen\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides these technical aspects, Marko said Verstappen himself made the difference. \u201cI was the only positive one within the team.\u00a0But we know that when Max is in a race, it’s a different story.\u00a0He forgets everything and he just goes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only the start was a moment of concern, particularly when Marko saw four cars charging into Turn 1 side by side<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s Mexico.\u00a0I think Max didn’t have any room, and he didn’t gain an advantage. I think the stewards did the right stuff.\u201d On the incident with Hamilton, he 82-year-old Austrian laughed: \u201cWhen they come together, there\u2019s always action!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After completing the first stint on mediums, Verstappen switched to softs \u2013 and that, said Marko, led to the key part of the race. \u201cI was scared that the times would drop.\u00a0But he did his 1m21.2s more or less every lap, it was always within half a tenth [ of a second]. That’s Verstappen, that\u2019s typical Max.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marko started believing in title chance after Monza\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result cut Verstappen\u2019s championship deficit to 36 points with four rounds remaining. Asked if he is beginning to believe that a comeback is really possible, Marko smiled: \u201cI started believing after Monza already.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, he stressed \u2013 like Verstappen \u2013 that perfection is needed until the end of the season. \u201cEvery point is essential.\u00a0As we know, we must do everything perfectly. In the last four races, there are 116 points to score. But we must be perfect, and we can’t afford small mistakes in the set-up, which happened here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

When asked if Red Bull had expected Mexico to be the toughest of the remaining races, Marko responded: \u201cNo, we don’t think like that.\u00a0We believe that at every circuit, our car and our driver are good enough to compete on the front.\u00a0Also, the lap time comparison with Norris was more or less on the same level in the second stint.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the next race in Brazil, Marko thinks rain would help Verstappen\u2019s mission: \u201cI hope so. So maybe we get another Verstappen show.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expectations within Red Bull were split on Saturday evening at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Team advisor Helmut Marko…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,141204,817,813,816,4405,825,141203,946,85,146318],"class_list":["post-246185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-autodromo-hermanos-rodriguez","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-helmut-marko","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mexican-gp","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-the-moment-helmut-marko-started-believing-max-verstappens-f1-title-chances"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}