Helmut Marko: “Max Verstappen shaped by Jos Verstappen but now has his own opinion today”
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Max Verstappen
Helmut Marko the RedBull team adviser has recently shed some light on the influence that Jos Verstappen has had over his son Max Verstappen’s meteoric rise in Formula1.
It has been stated in Planetf1 that Helmut Marko believes that Max Verstappen from being just a kid when he entered Formula1 in 2015 has grown exponentially in the last 5-6 years and now has become a fully grown-up who can speak his mind and deal with difficult situations in a composed manner.
Helmut Marko was the one who first saw potential in Max Verstappen back in 2015 and has previously said that “When I first talked to Max, he was way ahead of the rest of the people of his age.” Helmut has been with the RedBull team for a long period and since 2015 he has kept a keen eye on the young prodigy.
Helmut Marko on Max Verstappen’s progression since coming into F1
Max Verstappen is now compared to the lights of Ayrton Senna and Micheal Schumacher who were the greats of their era. Helmut Marko sees Max Verstappen as someone who has managed to leapfrog and come out of the shadow of his father Jos Verstappen.
While talking about Max Helmut has recently said “You have to remember, he is still not older than 24.“
“Max has matured. That also has a bit to do with the weaning, because he was super-trained and shaped by his father. The relationship is still very close, but Max has his own opinion today.”
“This process of maturity was partly not so visible from the outside, but it has reached the highest level very quickly.”
“Because in the past, if something didn’t go right in preparation, he would always explode. Today he stays calm. We had a few technical problems. Now he just sees the whole picture.”
Helmut has admitted that in the past Max was sometimes all over the place and acted like someone who wants to do everything on the first lap. However, Helmut has said, “Verstappen has driven almost flawlessly, has improved in all areas, and is no longer impetuous.”
Marko feels Max has got the ruthless attitude that Senna and Schumacher had and said, “There’s nothing there but ‘I want to win, and I’ll do everything for it. And they grow beyond normally non-existent possibilities.”
As an example, he talked about Max Verstappen’s qualifying lap during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix where Max was looking all set to break the timing of Lewis Hamilton until he misjudged the last corner and hit the wall.
“But until then he was sensationally fast,” said Marko. “You could see he was driving the car so, over the limit, it was even visually visible.”
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)