‘They have an advantage in strategy and reliability,’ Helmut Marko thinks Red Bull should ‘fear’ Mercedes more than Ferrari in 2023

Helmut Marko has given the nod to Mercedes (and not Ferrari) as Red Bull's biggest threat for the upcoming season.

‘They have an advantage in strategy and reliability,’ Helmut Marko thinks Red Bull should ‘fear’ Mercedes more than Ferrari in 2023

Pictured: Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen tussling at the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Red Bull and Ferrari started the year on relatively equal terms, while Mercedes were nowhere near either. Despite that, they kept themselves in the fight. After the summer break, they were actually Red Bull’s closest competition on a lot of weekends. They finally took their first win (and 1-2) of the season in Brazil, but they arrived a little late. Ferrari was able to secure P2 in the end.

Nevertheless, they progressed considerably through the course of the season. In Bahrain, no one would have expected them to be beating Ferrari on a number of weekends. They weren’t able to catch Red Bull, though, and that weekend in Brazil was the only where they really competed for a win. And to some extent, their recovery was down to Ferrari’s many missteps. Their pristine reliability was the reason they were able to stay in touch in the first half of the season.

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Red Bull are clearly the team to beat right now – Ferrari and Mercedes will need to catch them next season. But the Italians cannot afford any more of the strategic mistakes they made aplenty in 2022. Those mistakes, in addition to the reliability issues that plagued them (forcing them to run the engine lower), are the main reason why Helmut Marko thinks that the Silver Arrows will be Red Bull’s main competition in 2023.

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As per Motorsport.com, the Austrian thinks that the team should be more cautious of Mercedes as they have two distinct advantages. He said: “I would say that we should fear Mercedes more. Mainly because they have an advantage over Ferrari in terms of strategy and reliability.” It’s hard to say if Ferrari would have beaten Red Bull last season without their own mistakes, but the fight would have been closer. That much is obvious.

Related: Helmut Marko and Red Bull ‘cautiously optimistic’ for 2023 despite cost cap penalty

Helmut Marko sure other teams will be ‘much closer’ to Red Bull in 2023

Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko
Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko

There are a number of advantages that come with ‘nailing’ new regulations. These take some time to evaporate. An example of this is Mercedes between 2014-2016 when they were completely dominant over the rest of the grid. They’d reaped the rewards of getting their car around the regulations bang-on. Red Bull did similarly in 2022, and Ferrari did too to a lesser extent. This time, it was Mercedes who was left behind in the dust. But Red Bull’s domination in 2022 is nothing compared to that of Mercedes.

This is why Helmut Marko doubted that the team could start an era of dominance like Mercedes had. He thinks the situations are different as Mercedes had a big advantage with the engine: “Our situation is certainly not like that of Mercedes at the beginning of the hybrid era. We don’t have an immense lead with the engine right now. So that is very different. Mercedes had at least 50bhp margin over all the others back then.”

Plus, this is only the first year of the 2022 regulations. Other teams will try to follow in the dominant team’s footsteps. Moreover, measures like the aerodynamic restrictions (and RB’s 10% penalty) and the budget cap should stop Red Bull from running away with it. Marko recognizes as much: “And we shouldn’t forget: 2022 has been the first year under this new set of regulations. Other teams have obviously seen what we have done with this year’s car. So I think it will definitely be much closer next season.”

With Red Bull’s aforementioned penalty for the cost cap – which docked their wind tunnel time by 10 percent, there is even more potential for Mercedes and Ferrari to catch up. There is a lot of buzz around a potential three-way title fight next season, and it’s definitely a welcome prospect. The more teams the merrier – that is definitely the end goal of the many measures put in place to ensure closer competition.

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