Helmut Marko claims critics thought Red Bull were ‘criminals’ for putting 17-year-old Max Verstappen’s Suzuka F1 outing

Helmut Marko recalled Max Verstappen's impressive F1 outing at the Japanese GP at the age of 17.

Helmut Marko claims critics thought Red Bull were ‘criminals’ for putting 17-year-old Max Verstappen’s Suzuka F1 outing

Helmut Marko and Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)

In 2014, Max Verstappen had his first drive during a Formula 1 race weekend at the Japanese GP. At age 17 in 2015, the Dutchman made his FP1 debut with Toro Rosso. Helmut Marko masterminded the decision to put young Verstappen through the ultimate free practice test at Suzuka.

Helmut Marko recently highlighted that moment when they included Max Verstappen to drive at Suzuka. He described Suzuka as one of the fastest and most difficult tracks in the entire F1 calendar. Marko stated that they wanted to see how Verstappen would handle such a challenging circuit. Despite being very young, they had faith in his talent and gave him this important opportunity. The results showed that the 17-year-old had incredible potential and could handle the toughest tracks.

Then came the day when we put Max on a Friday drive at Suzuka, one of the fastest and most difficult circuits we have in the whole F1 calendar.
Helmut Marko said, as reported by RacingNews365
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Some of the critics and fans thought Red Bull was making a mistake putting a rookie in such a challenging situation. The 81-year-old Marko explained how they were doubting Verstappen on his debut. However, when the Dutchman got in the car, he proved the critics wrong. After only about four laps, he tackled the R130 corner at Suzuka at full speed. The R130 corner is one of the fastest and most challenging on the track, which demonstrated Verstappen’s incredible skills and bravery by doing it so quickly. Marko stated that they were very impressed by that young talent who handled such a difficult part of the circuit confidently.

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Some of our critics thought we were criminals. Max got in the car and went flat R130 at Suzuka, the flat-out one after only four laps or so.
Helmut Marko added

Pierre Gasly couldn’t accept Max Verstappen was faster than him at Red Bull

Pierre Gasly in his first F1 season in 2018 was called up by Red Bull replacing Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo. However, the Frenchman didn’t met Red Bull’s expectations and failed to show his speed on track and was demoted back to Red Bull sister team Toro Rosso. Helmut Marko recalled one of the races in Budapest where Gasly struggled. He explained during that race, The 28-year-old was lapped by other drivers even though he was not on a pit stop. Due to this Gasly asked for a different suspension setup for his car, because of the challenges he faced during that race.

When he was lapped in Budapest, he wanted a different suspension.
Helmut Marko told GrandPrix247.com
Pierre Gasly, Helmut Marko, Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly, Helmut Marko, Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)

Marko with a little frustration stated, Gasly wasn’t an engineer and didn’t have any technical knowledge to decide about the car’s setup. He mentioned the 22-year-old that time was running out of excuses for his poor performance. Marko believed that Gasly simply couldn’t accept that Max Verstappen was naturally faster. Instead of acknowledging this, the French driver tried to blame his struggles on the car’s suspension.

He’s not an engineer. He was just running out of excuses and simply couldn’t accept that Max is just the faster guy.
Helmut Marko stated

Certainly, Helmut Marko explained that Pierre Gasly couldn’t swallow the bitter pill that Max Verstappen was simply better than him. Because of this Red Bull chose Verstappen to drive for their team. On the other hand Pierre Gasly was forced to drive for Toro Rosso (now RB) again.

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