Helmut Marko: “In the last six months, Ferrari and McLaren have clearly been the strongest”. Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko looks back on the 2024 F1 season.

End-of-year assessment
Helmut Marko, confirmed as a Red Bull consultant after a tumultuous year, shared an insightful end-of-season analysis with Austria’s *Kleine Zeitung*: “It was a very difficult season for us, especially due to our technical issues. At one point, we couldn’t understand where we had gone wrong, and sometimes we only had the fourth-fastest car. In this situation, Max saved us by working on the car’s weaknesses. The turning point came with his incredible performance in the rain in Brazil. Additionally, we never made strategic mistakes, unlike McLaren.”

A 2025 without the favorite tag
As Max Verstappen has suggested, Helmut Marko also believes that Red Bull will not be the favorite next year: “If we look at the last six months, Ferrari and McLaren have clearly been the strongest teams. Therefore, we need to develop a car with a broader operating window, one that doesn’t react unpredictably to changes. If we can achieve that, we’ll be halfway there.”

The path to Max Verstappen’s fifth consecutive title appears far from easy: “My wish for the new year is Max’s fifth title. We stopped at four with Sebastian Vettel, and winning a fifth with Max seems particularly difficult.”