“McLaren is chasing sponsors,” Helmut Marko takes a cheeky dig at the F1 team

“McLaren is chasing sponsors,” Helmut Marko takes a cheeky dig at the F1 team

Helmut Marko

The first two days of the Barcelona round of pre-season have been quite eventful. On the first day, we saw McLaren’s driver Lando Norris topping the charts, and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz followed him. The next day, it was another great day for the Ferraris as Leclerc topped this day. But McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo wasn’t far behind as the Aussie topped the morning session and finished third overall.

These standings proved that Ferrari and McLaren have fared too well and did their homework of preparing beasts for the new season and era. And Mercedes’ George Russell agrees as the young driver said, “Some teams are looking pretty fast. A red team and an orange team, in particular, look very, very competitive. So let’s see what tomorrow brings and what we can do between this test and Bahrain.”

Despite these performances from Ferrari and McLaren, Red Bull’s advisor, Helmut Marko, isn’t impressed. Marko went out on a limb to take a soft jibe at the McLaren team and an even softer one at Ferrari.

Helmut Marko’s comments on McLaren and Ferrari

McLaren's MCL36
McLaren’s MCL36

During an interview on the third day of testing, Helmut Marko said to  Auto, Motor und Sport, “McLaren is chasing sponsors,” as he believes the orange team is going out on an extra limb than what a team like Red Bull would do.

Commenting on Ferrari, Marko said, “Ferrari is definitely stable for once. But how much more fuel did they have onboard?” This subtle dig shows that the Bulls aren’t too worried about others as they are running on full tanks.

Helmut Marko is also satisfied as it seems that Max Verstappen has given his approval to the RB18. The Dutch driver, as Marko claims, has said, “from the first lap that the car felt pretty good.” These are good signs for Red Bull, as Max at the time of publishing, stands second on the third day of testing despite using less soft tires than George Russell at first.

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