Helmut Marko admits McLaren is untouchable: “We lose seven-tenths to a second per lap”. Red Bull's Helmut Marko expressed frustration after McLaren's overwhelming speed in Miami.

Max Verstappen grabbed pole position in Miami during qualifying, but on a track where it wasn’t possible to make extreme defensive maneuvers, the McLaren cars triumphed over the four-time world champion, pulling away towards victory with huge gaps to the competition (Verstappen had only won with such a margin in Hungary in 2023, inflicting more than 30 seconds to Lando Norris).

Red Bull arrived in Miami with a new floor, but for now, McLaren seems to be on another planet, as a disheartened Helmut Marko pointed out after the race: “It’s depressing to see how much faster McLaren is. This race actually showed the real order of performance on track – these are the words of the Austrian reported by Autosport – we’re too slow, losing from seven-tenths to a second per lap.”

Christian Horner denied that Red Bull would bring more updates to Imola, but Helmut Marko confirmed that a ‘package’ is scheduled: “We’re too slow, we need to find more performance. Our next package has to close this gap, but it’s hard to imagine we’ll be able to recover all the difference between us and McLaren.”