Helmut Marko reveals Red Bull’s ‘biggest problem’ in title fight against McLaren

Helmut Marko highlighted the main cause of concern for Red Bull against McLaren for this year's title.

Helmut Marko reveals Red Bull’s ‘biggest problem’ in title fight against McLaren

Sergio Perez (L), Max Verstappen (R), Helmut Marko (C) (via IMAGO)

Red Bull can no longer stay ahead of rival teams as they did at the start of the season. The Milton Keynes-based team has experienced a drastic decline in performance since the Miami GP. Max Verstappen missed first place twice, colliding with Lando Norris during the Austrian GP and with Lewis Hamilton recently in Budapest. These incidents caused a massive loss of points, which McLaren captured. McLaren is now close to catching Red Bull in both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ standings. Helmut Marko revealed the team’s biggest problem is fighting for the title against McLaren.

Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko said that Max Verstappen’s lead of three wins was good enough, but it wasn’t very comforting. He stressed that the team needs to perform consistently and be able to win races on their own again. Marko highlighted that defending the drivers’ title will be easier than defending the constructors’ title. This is because, currently Verstappen can alone perform well and defend his driver’s title. However, Sergio Perez on the other side is falling way behind in scoring points which is required to defend Constructors championship.

Verstappen's lead is three wins, so that is sufficient, if not reassuring. However, we need to perform consistently and be able to win on our own again. Defending the drivers' title will certainly be less difficult than defending the constructors' title.
Helmut Marko said, as reported by RacingNews365
YouTube video

Further, Helmut Marko explained that currently their biggest problem is that McLaren continues to score points with both drivers. While Red Bull had been struggling to score even a few points with Sergio Perez. Marko observed there’s no change in Perez’s performance as recently he again crashed at the Hungarian GP Q1. The Mexican’s performance from the last six races remains the same, which is putting Red Bull in a back-forth position.

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As McLaren continues to score points with both drivers, our biggest problem is that we have been scoring far too few points lately with [Sergio] Perez.
Helmut Marko stated.
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Helmut Marko highlighted that Sergio Perez during the Hungarian GP, on Friday performed very well, staying just behind Verstappen and having the best long runs of all drivers. However as the day proceeded, check made a silly mistake during Q1 which resulted in him starting from 16th position. Despite this setback, the Mexican had a very strong race and managed to finish in seventh place. However, this was not enough to defend their position of Constructors title.

Checo was very good on Friday and was just behind Max Verstappen, with the best long runs of all drivers as well. Then unfortunately, a silly mistake in qualifying followed, resulting in the 16th starting position, followed by a very strong race to seventh place.
Helmut Marko explained.
Helmut Marko and Sergio Perez
Helmut Marko and Sergio Perez (via IMAGO)

Marko explained that Perez had been showing an unpredictable performance recently, with many ups and downs. He highlighted that, there are days when he performs exceptionally well showing great skills and speed. But other times he makes a mistake that costs the team valuable points. Marko said that this is very frustrating because the team or anybody will never know when Checo will shine or when he will have a bad day. He emphasized that the lack of consistent, good performances is a big issue for the team. They need the Mexican to deliver strong results to effectively compete against other teams.

It goes up and down with him, nobody knows when he's going to shine or when he's going to make a mistake. He's just not putting in consistent, good performances.
Helmut Marko added.

Certainly, Helmut Marko reckoned that to improve the teams performance, both the drivers must perform at their pinnacle. By doing so they can defend the title against McLaren who currently seems faster than Red Bull. Fans are hoping for a decent race from Sergio Perez before last time before the summer break.

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