It’s always Helmut Marko vs Christian Horner in Red Bull
Helmut Marko continues to needle Christian Horner whenever possible. Although their relationship may not be as tense as it was a year ago, when internal power struggles erupted at Red Bull following the alleged harassment scandal involving the team principal, the 81-year-old Austrian executive often shows that he doesn’t fully agree with his rival’s views. This is evident even in an interview Helmut Marko gave to *Autosprint*, in which he considered Adrian Newey’s departure a key factor in the performance decline of the RB20.
Adrian Newey’s departure from Red Bull
Just days after Christian Horner’s statements, in which he argued there was no connection between Red Bull’s loss of competitiveness in 2024 and Newey’s departure, Helmut Marko takes the opposite stance: “We started off well, dominating, but since Adrian Newey left, our engineers have struggled to extract the maximum from the car. However, by the end of the season, things gradually went in the right direction, and we can say we’re very optimistic about the future. The truth is that from Miami onward, the teams competing to win became four, because McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes joined in turn.”
Max Verstappen will handle it
Helmut Marko’s opinion on the short-term future also contrasts with Jos Verstappen’s, who has expressed little optimism about Max’s chances of winning again in 2025: “I think this year we’ll see the team that can get the car into the ideal performance window in the best way. We at Red Bull need to produce a solid car, but most importantly, one that is honest and manageable. We don’t need a car that is necessarily much faster than the others. Realistically, we have a big advantage, which is having the absolute number one driver in the team, Max Verstappen. Just give him a competitive, overall ‘okay’ car… The rest, you’ll see, he’ll take care of it.”
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