Helmut Marko breaks silence on Aston Martin’s rumored interest in poaching Max Verstappen after Adrian Newey signing
Aston Martin has upgraded their arsenal by bringing in Adrian Newey, a move that could potentially tempt Max Verstappen away from Red Bull.
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Helmut Marko and Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)
Adrian Newey has been making the headlines for quite a while. The 65-year-old recently announced Aston Martin as the home for his next chapter in F1. With strong technical leadership and Newey’s track record of bringing success to every team he joins, the paddock was buzzing with rumors about Aston Martin being keen on signing Max Verstappen in the future. This led Red Bull’s senior advisor Helmut Marko to break his silence on the chatter.
Max Verstappen has been the driving force for Red Bull‘s recent success. He had the most dominant season by any driver last year, claiming 19 victories in the season. However, the Dutchman’s success is often considered to have been half-aided by Adrian Newey‘s masterpieces, which the reigning champion has never denied.
Following the design wizard’s move to Aston Martin, the team’s part-owner and executive chairman Lawrence Stroll was speculated to be interested in poaching the triple champion from the Milton Keynes outfit. In light of this, Marko advised Verstappen to not get tempted into a move away from Red Bull.
He knows that he can win titles with us, too, if we can get through this world championship now. Adrian Newey cannot start until March 1, 2025, which is already relatively late. The whole team at Aston Martin certainly needs to get used to each other first.Helmut Marko said in an interview with Kleine Zeitung
The Austrian claimed that winning this year’s championship would be important in building trust with the team. Though one cannot overlook Newey’s influence on the team, Marko asserted that the Brit would require some time to get in the groove at Aston Martin, making Red Bull the correct place to be for a few more years.
Max Verstappen reflects on his two Free Practice outings in Baku
On the contrary, Red Bull has been at constant war with the RB20 to ensure it works to its full potential. Experts speculated that owing to the track in Baku featuring high curbs, the Milton Keynes-based squad could be at a disadvantage around the street circuit.
In stark contrast to the predictions, Verstappen topped the FP1 session while his teammate was at the sharp end in FP2. Reflecting on that, the 26-year-old sounded positive about the team being competitive at the Azerbaijan GP.
I think overall we had a good day. We learned some things, now we have to look back at what we all tried, but so far it seems we are more competitive this weekend, so that is positive. It's also a bit part of the track [with the understeer issue in FP2]. It's very slippery and there are a lot of 90-degree corners. Sometimes you hold the brake down as a precaution not to hit the wall.Max Verstappen said in a post-session interview
Verstappen explained that he had a good day on the track. He admitted that he had to stay a bit cautious on the brakes owing to the close walls around the tarmac but he reckoned the team needed to fine-tune the balance before qualifying on Saturday (September 14).
Despite his optimism, Red Bull witnessed a slump earlier in the season when the team performed great during practice sessions but was pipped by rivals during qualifying. Thus, the team needs to stay realistic heading into qualifying as other teams could ramp up their pace.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)