Helmut Marko says there are serious concerns that Max Verstappen could leave Red Bull at the end of the season if the team does not improve its performance.
Verstappen finished sixth at the Bahrain Grand Prix after overtaking Pierre Gasly on the final lap of the race, but was over half a minute behind race-winner Oscar Piastri despite a safety car neutralizing the race with just 24 laps to go. After Verstappen struggled so heavily with tire degradation, balance issues and braking problems, Marko admitted solutions need to be found quickly.
“The concern is great,” Marko told Sky Germany of the fear that Verstappen could leave at the end of the season. “As I said, improvements have to come in the near future so that he has a car with which he can win again. We have to create a basis with a car so that he can fight for the world championship.”
Verstappen’s chances of a better result were also hampered by two slow pit stops – one for a signaling issue and another due to a slow tire change – and he says it simply compounded a tough evening for him.
“The pace was very bad, but of course I didn’t expect the race that I had, because basically everything went wrong that could go wrong,” Verstappen said. “That probably made it a little bit worse. But I think the position where I finished is, at the end of the day, the maximum that we could have done.
“The brakes are a little bit better because we were allowed to change the material, but the problem is not only the feeling in the brakes, which is still not where I want it to be, but also our tires are just overheating, so when I’m braking there is no feeling, because it’s super easy to lock fronts or rears at the same time.”
Having won in Japan a week earlier, Verstappen said the track layout and surface in Bahrain exposed Red Bull’s weaknesses even more.
“Lacking balance [is the cause], and it’s highlighted even more on this track. When you have no balance and no tire management, or worse tire management than the others, then on this track it’s worse.
“I just feel like we are even worse on tires somehow this year. It makes it just very complicated. Because last year we were not too bad around here. Of course then people made improvements, but I feel like we actually had a worse weekend than last year. So it’s a bit weird.”
