Red Bull<\/a>, in Dubai and asked if we could meet briefly,\u201d Marko told Austria\u2019s\u00a0ORF.<\/p>\n\u201cA kind of championship dinner was planned. And we met before the dinner.\u00a0I told him what I wanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discussed for a while whether a partial solution was still possible. I said that if we were going to do it, we had to do it completely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat happened ad hoc. The other shareholder from the Thai family [Yoovidhya] was also present. But it was all very amicable and went very well.<\/p>\n
\u201cMax should have been there, too. There were some problems with his flight, so he wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called him the next day. It wasn\u2019t a normal conversation. There was a certain melancholy in the air. He said he never could have imagined that he would ever achieve such success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruminating on the dramatic end to the F1 2025 season, which saw Verstappen narrowly beaten to a fifth consecutive title by McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris, Marko said he would likely have chosen to walk away regardless of the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a difficult season this year,\u201d Marko explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was particularly bumpy in the middle. We were 104 points behind in Holland. Then we started a comeback that was certainly unique. But unfortunately, it didn\u2019t work out in the last race. We lost the championship by two points.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough this comeback was unique, it was still a very bitter disappointment. It hit us particularly hard. Even after the race, I felt that something had been lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cI then stayed in Dubai on Monday. That\u2019s when I made my decision. Even if we had won, it would have been a good reason to leave this job. But now, in hindsight, because we lost, it\u2019s also a good point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen had previously made it clear, in early 2024, to Red Bull that Marko\u2019s continuation in his role had been imperative for his own continuance with the squad, but circumstances have changed completely since then, with an overhaul of management as Mekies replaced Christian Horner as CEO and team boss in mid-2025.<\/p>\n
With Marko choosing to walk away at a time when F1 enters an entirely new era with new chassis and power unit regulations, in which Red Bull becomes a fully autonomous manufacturer in its own right, the Austrian reflected on his relationship with Verstappen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe connection was certainly a very intense one, or the most intimate,\u201d he said, with Marko having been involved in the decisions to give the likes of Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastien Buemi, Jean-Eric Vergne, Carlos Sainz, and Pierre Gasly a shot within the Red Bull F1 operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the closest connection I\u2019ve ever had with a driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from that, Marko doesn\u2019t believe Verstappen has yet reached his peak as a driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fascinating thing is that with each passing year, Max Verstappen became faster, more mature, better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd to this day, I can\u2019t see an end to this development, even though he is already the best driver. That was the fascinating thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hardly ever had any differences of opinion. There were a few silly things, especially in the early stages. But the more successful he became, the simpler his approach became. He has become much calmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hardly ever has any lapses or outbursts, which were, of course, present in the early stages. And he has become an incredibly perfect or incredible personality for his age.<\/p>\n
\u201cMax has become such a personality that, despite his relatively young age, he leads a team and can lead it the way he does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read Next:\u00a0Zak Brown confirms McLaren\u2019s worst-kept secret ahead of F1 2026 season<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Helmut Marko has revealed how his farewell phone conversation with Max Verstappen went, with the Dutchman being the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,4405,818,825,44,918,85],"class_list":["post-346040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-helmut-marko","tag-home-page","tag-max-verstappen","tag-news","tag-red-bull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346040","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=346040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}